planning ahead

eating fish at a certain burmese restaurant in dc’s chinatown is not something that can be done on a whim. in fact, as the menu explicitly spells out, you must order fish a full day before you plan on dining there. is the restaurant serious? do you or does anyone know what they are going to want to eat the day before they dine? i certainly don’t. i barely even know what i am craving at the moment i am about to put a forkful of food in my mouth.

for a very long time, i considered myself a planner. i knew what i would be doing the next day, two weeks later, and even three years in the future. it was great. i was in control of my life. everything was set in place.
unfortunately though, i realized about a year ago that planning far in advance only works when there are no other people and/or variables associated with the plans. i also discovered at that moment that planning for the future took me away from the present day; my brain’s frontal lobe kidnapped me from 'the now' and hid me in 'the later'.

eager to be freed from the constraints of future dreams, i employed a shiny, pointy sewing pin, and on a warm and august morning, i punctured right through my frontal lobe. a deluge of plans gushed from the white matter of my brain and with it, flowed my ability to control impulsivity.

since then, i have been living blissfully in the moment. i have no idea what i will be doing in an hour, or what i will be doing this weekend, or even what i will be doing when i graduate. i feel free! i feel unrestrained! i feel...

shit! truthfully, i feel lost. i don't know where i am going. i don't know what i want to do when i finish school. i don't know anything.

does this mean that i will never go anywhere? that i will stay in a stagnant pool with breeding mosquitos?


dwight d. eisenhower once said: plans are nothing; planning is everything.

...in my loose interpretation of his quote, i suppose he is saying that planning is great...but you can't be disappointed when the plans don't work out. so, with that being said, i will make plans tomorrow to have fish on friday. and i will make plans on friday to ______ when i graduate.