5 year plan

About 4 years and 7 months ago I made a 5 year plan. Who cares what it was, because it looks like it's going to be a bust. It was my first 5 year plan though, so I've learned a couple lessons and will try to make a better 5 year plan this November.

5 years ago I was just out of college with a degree in English (emphasis in Creative Writing). I had a half-finished novel, was learning HTML, had just quit my job at the Seattle Art Museum, and was torn between jobs where I was applying to be a copy editor and a customer service rep (who would climb the corporate ladder up to copy editor and maybe even editor one day). I dreamed of being a novelist, like so many other recently graduated English majors... the only difference that I saw between them and myself was that I was actually going to make it. And so I built a series of exit interview-esque questions that I would give myself if I ever decided not to be a writer. Things like, "Are you giving up merely because you're unsuccessful so far?" and "Have you found a better medium for expressing the complexities of the human mind?" Yeah, dorky. But whenever I thought about quitting I would give myself these questions and force myself to answer them. One of them always convinced me that I probably shouldn't quit just yet. Now, having just quit, I don't even feel like answering those questions for some reason. Intuitively, I feel like I can answer them, but it would be a waste of time. I'll get around to it though, soon enough, just to make sure.

In the meantime, it's amazing how much my brain has refactored itself to readjust to this new realization that writing fiction is out and writing code is in. It's the phenomenon I was trying to explain at the end of this essay, There Ain't Nothing on TV where new decisions at a root level cause a very physical or emotional echo in your head for several weeks. It's refreshing, even though it feels a lot like loss or grief. A sad kind of happy.

My 5 year plan was too specific, I think. It relied on results and not causes or reasons. My next 5 year plan will go back to root values instead of results, because I feel that even though my last 5 year plan was a bust, I still made significant progress these last 5 years to justify the detour I've taken. My next plan should be flexible and general enough to consider performance like this to be according to plan rather than contrary to the plan. I just need a way to define this that doesn't make it too easy or vague.

I like looking at people 5 years younger than myself and 5 years older than myself to compare and contrast situations. Are people 5 years younger than me ahead of me (by whatever vague criteria I judge "aheadness" by), and do I think I can catch up to or even pass people who are 5 years older than me? It's an easy game to win, I realize, since the state of winning is defined by myself, and I can look at someone with children and a house and lots of money and still feel that I'm ahead of them because those factors don't come into the equation at all. If they were to make the same judgment against me, I'm sure that they would be winning as well. Just let me live in my deluded game where I always win, will you?

Comments

[kv]

5-year plan sounds creepy, like something from russian history

http://mars.acnet.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/stalin/lectures/EconDev.html

[Don]

Maybe the 5-year plan was a bust, but offhand I'd say the five years weren't. You've gotten yourself a significant and educational job, you've found yourself a significant other, and you've taken significant steps toward rebuilding yourself into something interesting and timely. Many people would kill or at least maim to be able to say they'd accomplished that much.

You say your new 5-year plan focuses more on causes than results. Have you yet considered "See what happens and react accordingly"?

[Erik Benson]

No, the "see what happens and react accordingly" plan would be a little too much like how I see people without 5 year plans living. Seeing what happens is too risky, it's like waiting for inspiration. There are too many choices to make on a daily basis, there has to be some landmark in the distance that you're generally aiming for. Not so far off as to seem lofty or unlikely, but just far enough away to help direct the small decisions and medium-sized projects that come along.

[ec]

not a bad 5 years though wizard (or was it sorcerer?). besides quitting writing isn't quite like quitting most things. its not like if you pick it up again in 3 years or 20, your pen or computer will say, "i'm sorry, but we've filled your position and there are no current openings." or, "why should we hire you back after the scene you made when you quit." hell, you can write or not write anytime you want and there's not a damn thing stopping you or forcing you.

[Tom McMahon]

The Plan is Nothing, Planning is Everything
I think it was Peter Drucker who said that. Similarly, psychologist Nathaniel Branden once related that at age 20 he had his life all mapped out, with a list of books he would write up to age 80. Six months later he had to revise his list, then again 6 months later, then again, and again, until finally he threw away his list.

Look at it another way: Wouldn't Life be really boring if you COULD map it out from age 20 to 80?

[Erik Benson]

It all depends on what kind of plan you're making. As long as you plan directions and not results, I think a planned life would be just as interesting, maybe even more so because you're building towards something consciously and by the end you may have something that has value instead of something that may or may not have value because it was mostly an accident.

Revising the plan is fine, so maybe you're right about the plan versus planning.

A game I've been playing with myself this last week is to tell myself that I'm going to commit suicide in 5 years unless I achieve my plan (which isn't yet defined). But then I can start building a plan that is important enough to stake a life on, as well as something that will justify living another 5 years. I'll probably post something more about this as November comes around.

[Chris]

Deja Vu
Your five-year plan (the first one) sounds eerily like my own: English major with literary aspirations, a few minor successes early on but bitten shortly thereafter by the coding bug, and forever since captivated by the Web as the New Medium. Even David Foster Wallace admits the novel's facing a rough ride ahead, competing with the Web, movies, TV, etc. As for plans, I agree as well; better to have one than not -- but in this line of work, it's tough to plan when things are evolving in ways that are quite difficult predict.

[Pam Shorey]

A gift, not a job
Life is a gift, not a job. Please don't think of it as your weekend chore list that has to be "accomplished."
Plan your career if you must -- but not your life. Life is so much more than the career.
You need not justify your existence; you simply are. All you need to do is appreciate it.

One problem with five-year plans is they are created with a miserable lack of information (about the world, your loved ones, and yourself, all of which will change over the five years), so are nearly always doomed to failure. I agree with Don's suggestion.

[Camilo]

Do you revisit your 5 year plan once every 5 years, or once every month?

[Erik Benson]

It has varied. My last 5 year plan was pretty vague, it just stated where I wanted to be in 5 years financially and career-wise. For most of the 5 years, it remained accurate to what I wanted to do... until about a month ago. It was definitely consulted and thought about at least once a month, but I didn't really need to make any changes to it until recently. Now, instead of revising it, I'm just going to wait for it to expire so I can draft a new one.

[Donatello]

Hmm..
Your bloggings are great, I've just started my own blog too.