The Lemon Life | online magazine offering a fresh perspective on post-grad life.

Words by: Jamie Phillips

Image by: Martin Holden

I don’t know about you, but my planning process goes something like this:

Step One: Check email/Facebook.

Step Two: Think about what I’d really like to do. Realize that lying on the beach like a lizard would eventually get boring. Not to mention all the sun burn/melanoma. Start considering viable options.

Step Three: Make a pro/con list for each viable option. Inevitably scratch a couple out on account of sheer laziness. (Being a doctor just sounds like so much work. Plus, touching people is icky. Pass.)

Step Four: Get a snack. See if anything new happened on Facebook.

Step Five: Daydream for a little while. Let my imagination run through my shortlist of possibilities. Note which ones I can actually see myself doing, being content with, and which are logistically feasible.

Step Six: Make the best decision possible with the available information and hope for the best.

Repeat as necessary.

The only thing I really know about planning is that it is rarely a one-time event. The original plan will find a way of being physically impossible, practicality-challenged, illogical, too expensive, illegal, or some other combination of never-going-to-happen. Currently, I am so far away from my Plan A (veterinarian) that it seems like something I saw in a movie as a child but probably misunderstood. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve amended, revised, scrapped and completely reworked my Plan. I am a constant work-in-progress, like the house renovation project that keeps having the contractors quit, the tiles discontinued, the pipes burst and various other calamities prevent its completion. But I suppose if I had it all figured out, I’d be finished… or dead. There’s not a lot of fun in that. And so, I resign myself to constant re-imagining.

Case in point: the belabored, much-griped-about slog through one calculus class prompted such a quick exit from the Science faculty that I got a stitch in my side. No problem. Psychology was waiting in the wings, tempting me with words like “deviant” and “psychopathology” and “no math required.” Then I graduated into a dearth of job opportunities I didn’t much care for. Fine. I’ll take up writing for no money and work retail. (“No, that color does not work with your skin tone, you look like oatmeal -er, I mean, want me to ring that up for you?”)

I once went to a workshop that was designed to help you figure out what you wanted to be when you grew up. It took all evening, but they claimed that through a battery of psychological tests (personality, aptitude, interest) they could show you The Way. At one point, the facilitator led the group through a guided meditation wherein you envisioned what you wanted your life to look like in five years. What clothes did you put on in the morning? Where did you go? What were you doing? I daydreamed about staying in my pajamas and drinking coffee in a sun soaked kitchen.

I couldn’t fathom anyone actually envisioning themselves putting on those awful, stodgy, one-style-fits-all dress pants to go and sit in a cubicle while their souls seeped out of their ears. And yet, more than five years later, what did I do this morning? I put on the hated dress pants, took the train with all the others who looked as dead inside as I felt, and went to sit in front of a computer.

That’s the one major glitch in planning: it’s not entirely up to you. You have to find a way to fit in with the world around you. On the one hand, we are social creatures, so this bodes well for our interaction needs. On the other, it usually means that you have to make money. And, as we all know, the making of money typically occurs in a boring and/or slightly humiliating manner, thereby necessitating a lottery win in order to fulfill your real aspirations of becoming a beach consultant.

Thankfully, though, you can always go back to the drawing board.

• Features