Stay Away from Happy Plannies

I feel like I'm surrounded by planners, schedulers, prioritizers and list-makers. I find it interesting that I don't necessarily naturally lump myself into one of these Type A categories despite my supreme OCD organizational skills and hate of all things stagnant and unchanging. Which is in turn also interesting, considering how much I fantasize about routines!

Planners get on my nerves for several reasons. First and foremost, most of them tend to appear harried, rushed and busy - even when they are accomplishing nothing. They're either doing something or stressing out about doing something. Second, they are so damned planny. It's such a bizarre Western tendency, the collective shame we feel when we're not scheduled to do something, or if we neglect an item on our schedule. According to our societal philosophy, life is ideally a march of obligations, each in its own little compartment. ::yack yack::

The third irritating characteristic of planners is not universally present among the breed. It's that creepy manic joy they get when they cross something off their list or reach their goals. Happy plannies are terrifying beings. They are intimidating and alien to me, and it takes a lot of internal negotiation for me to get along with them in any team setting. I get grumpy when these plannies reach their goals - not because they attained them, but because of the method they used to get there.

Why apply lean business practices to your life (unless you get some sort of unholy joy from doing so...)? Why are we so encultured to derive our satisfaction from how many social widgets we produce, how many meetings we attend, how many pounds we lose and list items we strike through? I feel the pressure too. It can't be healthy.

Somehow, I doubt we were born to these lives and placed upon this lovely gem of a planet, full of a bazillion possibilities, to waste our lives comparing our experiential to-do lists with those of our peers. Think of The Dude. Despite being despised by his culture, he embodied a secretly coveted, feared and misunderstood aspect hiding within all of us - laziness. Chillness. Complete disregard for all things not central to our every momentary whim. I have been socialized to be completely incapable of this mindset. When I lay down on the loveseat after work and snooze for an hour in a sunbeam, my firsts thought upon waking are, "Dammit, girl, you could have jogged 6 miles! You could have read that book you bought 4 months ago and haven't picked up! You could have written at least 6 thank-you notes, composed a ditty on Maestro, uploaded all of those pictures, attacked that nocturne you've been neglecting, cooked a special dinner, washed all the surfaces in the kitchen... What interesting things will you ever be able to blog about?!" And the list continues ad nauseum. What I should be thinking is: "Ahh. I feel better. What's next?"