Do you have a plan?

There are a number of ideas about how we should live:

• Eat, drink, be merry!
• Live your life in balance
• Life isn’t about being perfect, it’s about making progress
• Let go and let God…

The reason these and a lot more exist is that in every generation, humans try to figure out how they can go from living (merely existing) to living well (finding happiness). It is one of the many things that separates humankind from other animals. But it can also be very frustrating.

A particular part of the human population seems to struggle more with this than any other: those who are somewhere between the ages of 14 or 15 and maybe 28 to 30. Personally I didn’t know living well even existed until I was about 17. That was when someone asked me — and I could tell they wanted an answer — what I was going to do after college.

I thought to myself, “College? Am I supposed to go to college?” But I didn’t say that, I said, “I’m thinking about playing golf professionally.” That was kind of true. In fact it was the kind of true that most teens and early 20’s use most often. They have not (as I had not) really thought about a career choice outside of the realm of things they enjoy doing. I was pretty good at golf, so it seemed possible that I could do that. But did I have a plan to make it happen? No. Besides, I had just been distracted by the “college” part of the question.

I was a senior in high school, though, so I could figure stuff out. A couple of days later I ran into my friend (and former girlfriend) Pam in the hallway at school. She seemed to have life figured out, so I asked casually, “Hey Pam, where are you going to college?” In fact she actually knew the answer, told me, and I said, “Great! I think I’ll go there too.” And I did.

Now what?

Having been accepted there (the only college where I applied), and because many of my classmates were doing the same thing, I wandered off to college.

To be clear, I was not trying to figure out how to live well. I was just meandering along and doing what everyone else was doing. My older brother had already gone away to college, also with virtually no picture of the future.

Both of us had one other motivating factor: America was in a war in Vietnam, and if we didn’t go to college we were probably going to be selected for an all-expenses-paid trip to Southeast Asia. While we didn’t know what we wanted to do with our lives, we both wanted to preserve them.

Because I wasn’t in school with a positive purpose in mind, I only selected one class with the idea that it might help me in the future. It was kinesiology, and I figured it might be useful if I became a golf pro. There was a glimmer of thought there, but not a very bright one.

Those of you who have brushed up against philosophy will probably know the famous line that (according to Plato) Socrates spoke at his trial: The unexamined life is not worth living for a human being. What a challenging assertion! I have used it in teaching both leadership and followership, often with great effect.

Far fewer know that Aristotle, a student of Plato who was himself a student of Socrates, had an addendum to that statement. He basically said, the unplanned life is not worth examining. That rings true to me, for if I had tried to examine my life back then I would have only discovered one thing: I had no plan. The reason I had no plan is that I had no goal, no “end” that I hoped to accomplish. Life was generally fine, I apparently thought, so that could just go on forever. Twenty-somethings are still thinking that today, as are a few adults.

When a plan comes together

There was a popular TV show called The A-Team. They were a bunch of “misfits” in the best possible way. None of them “fit” because their thoughts as well as their actions were out of the box. When the “normal” way of doing things hadn’t worked for the government, they called on The A-Team to solve the problem. Their leader was Lt. Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith. The team would plan something, then make their way through the challenge presented, and of course nothing worked as it was supposed to. But the good guys always won, and invariably “Hannibal” would say, “I love it when a plan comes together.”

In real life plans often meet with unforeseen obstacles. My wife and some of her colleagues were trying to make their way to a metro airport from a remote location in Florida. One of them, Suzie, had a map. Yes, a physical piece of paper with a diagram of the area, including roads. A map compares to GPS like a book compares to a movie. You have to read it and figure it out.

They were doing great, when suddenly in front of them was a river with no bridge across it. Had their plan failed? No, they just had to adjust by taking a ferry.

Life is like that — rivers with no bridges will appear. But you find your way across because you have a plan to get somewhere, even if the route or the method needs adjusting.

Living well

To live well is to be happy, according to Aristotle, and happiness is an end in itself. How do you get there? You learn your identity, you find your purpose, and using that information you plan a path that takes you there.

Many young people — and some who are older — think that is too serious. It is serious, but what they don’t know is that all of this identity and purpose and planning is actually far more rewarding and enjoyable than any game ever invented. Except maybe golf.

Make a plan, and Do Good. It’s in you!