Are you a planner or do you like to make things up as you go?
I am really good at making plans. What would be great for me to be better is to follow through on those plans once they are made in the time frame I have allocated. In practice, I am much better at playing things by ear. Either that or I make plans after I have already started just so I don’t forget something as I am going along. So those are very short-term, in-the-moment plans if there is any planning at all. For example, I started typing all of this with no plan in mind of what I was going to say or how to proceed. All I had was the topic question as the title and a desire to answer it in as much of a stream of consciousness way as possible.
That’s one of the things that used to bug me about school writing assignments sometimes, no matter what level of school it was. They would want us to practice brainstorming, idea bubbles, outlining, and all that jive. So, often unbeknownst to all my teachers except for one, I would go ahead and write things out like I am doing right now and then go back and make my outline so I wouldn’t lose points. The funny thing is I always got good grades no matter what. It was still all my own ideas and my own writing. I just didn’t do the process in the order they wanted me to do it in.
I think that’s one of the things about The Doctor in Doctor Who that I like as well. The Doctor will, self-admittedly, go about from place to place making things up as he (or she) goes along. Sometimes the companions or a person being rescued will ask if The Doctor has a plan only to find out that there isn’t one. But there is always a great idea thought of at just the right moment that makes everything work out in the end. Now, of course, Doctor Who is fiction and while sometimes art imitates life and vice-versa, this is not always the case. But I didn’t come up with this way of doing things by seeing a character I like and imitating them either. Rather, I identified with a character who I saw doing things in a way that I already appreciated. To a lesser extent, it seems like that happens with Jack Bauer on 24, who I also really like.
This is a little bit off topic — which is a hallmark of people who make things up as they go — but that is one of my pet peeves is when someone assumes that I believe or do something because I saw or heard someone else doing it. This isn’t to say that I am never externally-influenced. That is ridiculous and not human. But just like it isn’t true that nothing I do or think comes from someone or something else, neither is it true that everything I do or think comes from someone or something else. It used to bother me when I would do things or say things as a kid that one relative or another didn’t. They would assume that I was only doing it because I heard or saw someone else do it. That’s an insult to my intelligence and not very intelligent on the person who would say it.
Another good example of this is when people assumed that Rush Limbaugh’s audience are — as he puts it — a bunch of mind-numbed robots who don’t think for themselves. Instead, they tune in from noon-3:00 PM Eastern Monday-Friday for him to tell them what to think. In classic Rush style, he would then play into that. In the early days of his show, when Fridays would come around, he would tell people to just tune out the news and all things important and just relax for the weekend because Rush would continue keeping an eye on things throughout the weekend. Then when the show returned the following Monday, he would not only tell people what happened, but what they were supposed to think about what happened. Well, of course, this only confirmed to liberals and any other Rush detractors what they already believed — or so they thought. In reality, he was demonstrating another one of the guiding principles of his show: illustrating absurdity by being absurd. His opponents’ reactions were the punchline of an elaborate joke that they were not in on even though it was hidden in plain sight. Their own arrogance became the means by which they were mocked by those they looked down on. I love things like that, which is one reason I am such a big fan of Rush.
But back to the original point of this, which this post has now become an illustration of the whole idea of me being much more of a “think on your feet,” “come up with it as you go along” kind of person. Has this always served me well? No. Has it always been bad for me? No. The same could be said for planners. There are times where planning things out are very helpful. Candidly, most of the time, it is probably better to be a planner. But some planners are also chronic worriers who try to plan for every possible contingency, not from a place of wisdom, but fear.
The God who made us is the master planner and rightfully so. But he also has the advantage of being outside time. He is everywhere at all times and has all power. Someone like that who is beyond time has one up on the rest of us. He can take everything into account and plan for every possible variable that comes as a result of the free will he gave us as people made in his image. But that’s why he is a supernatural being and why we need his empowerment to experience or take part in any of his supernatural qualities or actions. I think there is room for both types of people in the world — the planners and the “wing it” folks. I’m pretty content with this part of who I am though and am happy to share these thoughts with you tonight. God bless you on this first day of 2021. May it be a good year and filled with many, many more positives than 2020 brought us as a whole. Just remember, all those good things come from a foundation built on Jesus. “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17 NIV).
