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There is one type of question my long-distance boyfriend knows not to ask me unless he wants my breakfast to creep up my throat and deliver a cheeky “how do you do?” Does this stop him from asking it and having a chuckle at my adverse reaction? Unfortunately, I’m not that lucky.
We’ll be having a perfectly innocuous conversation about something far more pleasant, such as the joys of food poisoning or stubbing one’s toe, and all of a sudden, he’ll whip out the dreaded question.
“So … what are your plans for the weekend?”
Eggs over-easy, coming right up.
I deadpan “Why do you hate me” or “Get a hobby” or “For the love of God, it’s Thursday,” and he laughs an evil laugh while I instruct the contents of my tummy to stay in there!
Last week, after thoroughly disturbing my inner peace, he snorted and said, “You know, Irena, some people are afraid of spiders, but I could hold a calendar on a stick and it would be wraps for you.”
I barked a wry laugh and told him where he could shove it, but I realized that he just might have a point (though they are few and far between).
I’ll be the first to concede that no, I am not a planner; this isn’t a revelation that knocks my socks off. My first instinct when someone tries to engage me in conversation about the future is to knock on wood and say, “If I’m alive, that is!” like I’m someone’s senile grandfather deeply breathing in the last morsels of life.
And I firmly believe that, as my mom would instruct me growing up, “You make plans, God sits and laughs on your face.” I suspect that she’s added her own Eastern European flair to that colloquialism, but the meaning still resonates just the same.
I find making plans for a future I can scarcely conceive in my mind is as useful as watering a fake plant. It’s a waste of time, a waste of energy and a waste of my social battery. Let’s play this out; what if I say to my boyfriend, “Certainly, I’d be happy to tell you of my weekend social engagements!” and they don’t pan out? I can yammer on till the cows come home about the house party I’m thinking of attending on Friday night, and the tailgating I’m likely engaging in on Saturday afternoon and the run I’m going on with my friend on Sunday, but come on: What if I decide I’m not ecstatic about going out on a Friday night prior to game day? What if the house party gets canceled or, to put it a little more bluntly and a little less nicely, what if something better comes along and I want to keep my options open? What if, on Sunday morning, my leg muscles shrivel up due to excessive tailgating and I’ve lost the ability to move beyond a glacial pace? (This is in fact what I plan on telling my friend on Sunday morning.)
Any number of things could go awry that I have no control over and no ability to predict ahead of time, so I see zero point in talking about a made-up potential reality. Making plans often leads to creating expectations, and when those expectations aren’t met, it feels like I’m setting myself up for failure. I’d hate to be presumptuous about a future that I have little present control over —one that’s, frankly, not even guaranteed.
This phenomenon is officially known as a “locus of control.” In essence, the way people perceive control over their own lives can range from an external locus of control, which is the belief that one’s future is controlled by external forces and factors rather than oneself, or an internal locus of control, which is the belief that control of one’s future rests solely in the individual’s actions. I’ll let you guess which school of thought I clearly align with.
Due to the firm belief that my future is not wholly in my control and is instead subject to the unpredictable currents of the universe, I make plans spur of the moment. I make all major decisions via my trusty decision maker app. I can’t even tell you what I’m having for dinner tonight, let alone what I’m doing this weekend, and I’m late to everything barring my own funeral, which I also apparently seem to think is right around the corner. And man, if I had a nickel for every time someone looked at my planning habits and said to me, “Irena, you stress me out,” I’d be making major bank. Some call it spontaneity (which makes me feel very cool and carefree), but really, it’s more like feeling assured that I’ll end up happy without wrestling with the universe for control of my future.
Would I say this is an issue for me going about my day-to-day life? Not really. Despite my inability to write things down, I get all of my assignments done by their deadlines, I get good marks and I’m meeting all of my present career goals without strapping myself down to a five-year plan. I feel like in college, specifically, there’s so much pressure to base your current actions on what you want to be doing in five years (what an arbitrary number, right?); but, the way I see it, if I know what I’m passionate about and I continue to pursue the things I’m passionate about, I will inevitably be happy either way.
I take my life step by step and do what makes me happy in the moment — and if I keep doing that, won’t that mean that I’ll always be happy? At least until I retire (knock on wood) and realize that, damn, I should’ve looked into that Roth IRA situation all those years ago.
Some may say that I, perhaps, navigate life with an instant gratification mindset, through which I select habits and activities that make me happy in the moment without basing my actions on future rewards or consequences, otherwise known as delayed gratification. But I don’t think that’s it. It’s not that I don’t care about the future, it’s more so that I don’t take it as a given and refuse to torture myself today for the potential of a tomorrow that may never come. Morbid, I know, but I like to think that this mindset keeps me grounded in the present and limits the time I spend biting my nails and losing sleep over the future.
Entering a long-distance relationship, however, has made my seat-of-my-pants lifestyle a bit more risky than usual. My wagon is now hitched to someone else’s, and I am constantly facing the pressure of making decisions, establishing plans and giving concrete answers — my three least favorite things after doing laundry. And it doesn’t help that my boyfriend is a major planner. On Aug. 31, he asked me what I was doing during the weekend of Oct. 5. I nearly spit out my beverage of choice and chastised him for asking me such a blasphemous thing. We are, by all intents and purposes, polar opposites and prefer to live in vastly different ways.
I’m still figuring out how to be half of a pair; my boyfriend described me as someone who goes where the wind blows me, but I can’t really do that anymore, can I? He tells me sometimes that he gets nervous because he doesn’t know what to expect from me a week from now. And all I can tell him is, “Yeah, I don’t know either.”
He didn’t seem to know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Yeah, I don’t know either. My lifestyle makes me happy and keeps me on my toes in the best way, but my boyfriend is more flat footed; he likes to be certain that he’s standing on a solid foundation before he’s too generous with his heart. So while his need to have a grasp on the future frightens me and often incites a speedy subject change, I know that I’m with someone who’s carving a path for me to be in his life not just for the foreseeable future, but for the unfathomable and unimaginable future.
So maybe I can do the same for him and keep him posted on my Oct. 5 social engagements, whatever they may be. Maybe instead of briskly changing the subject when he asks me about my weekend, I can squeeze a stress ball and offer a rough blueprint.
Maybe I can save him a seat in my future, and allow him to be the one thing I plan for.
But I guess we’ll tune in and find out next week, won’t we?
Statement Columnist Irena Tutunari can be reached at tutunari@umich.edu.
The post Don’t ask me my plans! appeared first on The Michigan Daily.
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