We make plans. Like most of us, I always make them. Some people genuinely enjoy the process — color coding galore, neat boxes, everything aligned just so. For some slightly lazy specimens, it’s more of a chore. I’m somewhere in between. Organized enough to see the value, lazy enough to procrastinate just a little.
We make plans for work, for life, for weekends, and sometimes we make plans just so we can feel like we have a plan. Being organized is usually the stated reason. But what we’re really buying is a sense of order — structure applied to chaos. Suddenly, we feel more responsible. More grown up. And, implicitly, more in control.
Of course, the assumption here is certainty.
That if we plan carefully enough, the world will cooperate.
This, as it turns out, is where things usually go sideways.
Because certainty is not something the universe offers. There is a range of probability for everything, but there are no absolutes. This decade alone has brought a pandemic, multiple global conflicts, increasing polarization, and climate change effects that are no longer theoretical — they’re starting to feel very real. Social media amplifies all of it. We’ve always had conflict, and we’ve had pandemics before, but taken together, it does feel different.
There are other shifts too. Technology — not just AI, but a series of quieter breakthroughs — continues to change how we live and work. It’s hard to predict what all of this leads to. And our neighbours to the south continue to provide a steady stream of material that feels less like news and more like a writers’ room that has run out of subtlety.
Even this blog post wasn’t part of some perfectly executed plan. One of the plans was to write more, to blog again — ideally starting on January 1st, because that’s how these things are supposed to work. Instead, I got here not on January 1st, but still in January. Which, in hindsight, feels like a small but fitting reminder that progress doesn’t need to be punctual to be real.
Still, we plan. Not because plans guarantee outcomes, but because not planning feels worse. The mistake isn’t planning; it’s confusing plans with promises. Plans are tools, not contracts with the universe.
When things feel uncertain, we often respond by wanting more control — clearer answers, firmer timelines, better guarantees. We refresh the news, adjust our forecasts, and hope that this time the future will finally make sense. It rarely does.
Maybe the alternative is simpler: plan carefully, but live lightly. Stop postponing happiness until the world settles down. It never really does — it just takes breaks between episodes. Waiting for certainty before allowing ourselves to be content is like waiting for traffic to disappear before enjoying the drive.
So here’s to the year ahead — not because it will be calmer, clearer, or more sensible, but because it’s ours to live through anyway. We may not start on the first day, but we usually get there.
Happy not so old year.
Posts
