Life’s To-Do Lists
Posted by Anne
Life is full of to-do lists. From school to retirement, we often find ourselves at the mercy of a timeline that we follow, and that someone else created. School. More school. Marriage. House. Children. We persist through the journey, crossing off the expected milestones—some fit us, and some may not. Where do they come from?
Lately, I’ve been pondering my own life to-do lists. I’ve generally followed them, and frankly these to-do lists have landed me a very good life. It’s a life that doesn’t need to be completely erased or rewritten. It’s a life grounded in a loving family, a solid career, caring friends, and really cute dogs. So why am I always looking ahead to the “next step”, be it home-ownership, babies, or vacations I won’t be able to take for months or even years?
My life-to-do-list smacked me in the face last fall, on a hike with my husband. The coastal trail we hiked was probably one of the most lush, gorgeous spots I’ve seen since moving to the Northwest. The weekend had been so perfect—a string of pleasant and memorable moments. So naturally, I began planning future perfect moments. And the moments after those. And suddenly, my mind was months and years ahead of me, nowhere near the majestic cliffs and misty skies right in front of my unappreciative face. During the first quarter-mile, I asked my husband where he thought we’d be living next year. I want to be settled, you know. My husband, who is so darned comfortable with ambiguity, had no answers. But I kept badgering him. In the second quarter-mile, I asked him about buying a house. When would we be ready? Nope, no answers there either. My pace quickened. Oh…how about babies? When should we start a family? Silence. I worked myself into a literal frenzy, until his exasperation came through, and he reminded me that he’s just trying to make it one day to the next.
I had a verifiable planning-addict meltdown on those craggy coastal cliffs. I’ve since tried to unpack my freight-train of emotional panic because, frankly, it seems pretty unreasonable as I look back. All I can figure is that my life has always fallen along neat timelines. Graduate programs, temporary internships, and so forth. Neat little segments of a life, predictable and finite; not unlike the items on the to-do lists I meticulously create every day, and dutifully cross off. And now I’m in a phase where it’s become hard (impossible?) to predict how life will unfold. I still have my life’s “to-do list”, with no clue how to go about checking off the milestones. And every so often, I’m apparently emotionally unequipped to handle the ambiguity.
I’d venture to say we all have “to-do-lists”, but I wonder to what extent our “to-do-lists” are of our own design? Is your list packed with domestic goals, travel destinations, or the pursuit of a relationship? Since my meltdown, I’ve been on a mission (a la life in pencil), to adjust my to-do-list. Or to at least avoid panicking when I can’t check off an item—when I need to just be patient. Every day, I try to ignore my existential deadlines, and live. It’s an ongoing project, and one for which I need the support of friends and family. Because unfortunately, ambiguity isn’t going anywhere.
What’s on your life to-do list? Has your to-do-list given you the life you want? Or have you ever crossed something off, and found it wasn’t all you expected?
February 23rd, 2010 at 5:33 am
Anne,
I think it’s patience that you need, no? Maybe you find yourself with the solitary goal of living life now (instead of finishing a degree or…fill-in-the-blank) and the possibilities are endless, but your patience is wan. I know that I, for one, am overwhelmed by the open canvas. And by my own ambiguity, for sure.
The only thing I know is that you will never stop making lists. Someday, however, you may be able to erase some of the larger life-changers (buy a house) off the lists and fill them in with “pick up Tide,” which will actually seem just as important when the time comes.
February 23rd, 2010 at 7:37 am
I use to make plans for my life, back before I was married and had six kids. It was not the marriage or the kids that stopped the planning, the list making. It was my inability to envision.
Recently, I have begun looking towards the future more and started that list making again. I am finding it harder now as I know how much work goes into each item on the list – whether buying a house or buying Tide – so the list is shorter.
I do think we all build up expectations and those to-dos become things that cannot possibly always meet the expectations. What do we do about that? Adjust, change, plan anew.
February 23rd, 2010 at 7:46 am
I think life gets harder to plan as you get older. When you are younger you have high school, collage, job, marriage, house, children. But once you have most of those, I think it starts to become harder to plan for the rest.
I am a very planned out person, I graduated, had a job lined up and got married all within on month. 6 months later we had a house. We did wait awhile for the kids, but we are now on to have our second in June and beleive it or not I wanted all of this by the time I was 30 and this baby is due one month after I turned 30. But now I find myself in a sort of black whole, my to-do list stopped there. Where do I go from here. My life is exatly where I wanted it, I have had to cross things off as I went along and change the plan from time to time, but I got there. Now what…….
February 23rd, 2010 at 8:14 am
I think Danyiel makes a good point. What happens when all the items on the list are crossed off? Such lists can be rewarding as we accomplish the things on them, but they can also be confining as we may fail to see other options for our lives if we’re just tunneling through a list. I too am a list maker, but, like you, lately I’m trying to make my list less permanent (list in pencil?) so that I can change my plans when necessary.
February 23rd, 2010 at 8:57 am
When I was first married, my husband and I hoped to have a life in the Foreign Service. We envisioned moving from one exotic place to another, raising our children on every continent. It was a lovely dream that in the end did not happen, for reasons too complicated to go into here. We ended up putting down deep roots and raising our 3 boys in the same area code my husband grew up in. One of our children developed anxiety and hated travel of any sort, even to the local grocery store. He got over it, but has often said “I’m so glad you and Dad didn’t go into the Foreign Service.” Sometimes life forces you to make lemonade, and it’s sweeter than you could have predicted.
February 23rd, 2010 at 9:17 am
These responses are so incredibly encouraging and inspiring. It’s hard to think about OPENING more options, but at the same time…that’s what we need if we don’t want our lists to inhibit us in the end.
February 23rd, 2010 at 10:17 am
Oh Anne, we are like the same person. How I struggle with this!
Last winter I faced a very similar dilemma. My life had been very orchestrated to that point. Not the prescribed order, but close. College, get married, pay off debt, first real job, buy a house, husband back to college, change jobs, grad school, promotion. Then NOTHING! WTF? What am I supposed to do now? I need the next “big project” to focus on.
Of course, in my case there was also some depression mixed in. I started seeing a therapist and working on my wellness. But still, there is this lingering question. What does the next phase of my life hold? I have decades of adulthood stretching in front of me, with no plan or direction.
I’ve loved reading the advice here from your sage readers! Very helpful. I think we have reached a point in our lives where a shift takes place. It’s liberating in a way. And it is meant to help us focus on living in the now, being present in the moment. But learning how to do that isn’t easy.
Much love, Eva
February 23rd, 2010 at 10:54 am
Anne:
You are on slippery slopes on those craggy cliffs. i remember feeling just like you. Dreams I think I called them in one of my posts. You’re self imposed to-do list is artificial. You can plan and plan and life happens. Look forward to kids, a house, settling down–but it will happen in its right time and space. Enjoy the dreams. My best advise to you is to embrace the unknown with childlike joyfulness. You don’t have the same control you think you once did and that’s OK.
February 23rd, 2010 at 11:24 am
Anne,
You make a good point when you suggest that once we’re out of our nice and neat schedules, we are left floundering. It’s pretty poetic that you started thinking of this while on a hike, in a kind of wilderness. Once we’re done school, and then more school, and then, perhaps, even the job we wanted, we don’t know what’s next. I’m at that point now. I’ve accomplished the things I wanted: graduate degree, husband, house, kids. I don’t know what’s next. I sort of know what I want, but I don’t know exactly how to get there, and I worry that I never will. I guess we have to get comfortable by trying new things and living in the moment. (But that’s freakin’ hard!)
February 23rd, 2010 at 5:18 pm
I had a near meltdown when I turned 30 for very similar reasons. At 30, I was married with three kids, in my chosen career, homeowner, etc. It seemed like life’s milestones had all been reached and I was faced with WHAT NEXT? It was scary and hard and absolutely lightening to discover that it didn’t matter what come next, I could just enjoy the journey. Of course then I got pregnant with our fourth child who is screaming in the background as I type this message. Cheers to life lived! And good luck finding the balance for you.
February 23rd, 2010 at 5:58 pm
Such a wonderful post and equally wonderful responses!
So much of what you say here resonates with me. I always am looking for the next big thing on the horizon and have trouble living in the now. Even now, with two young kids I’m wondering whether I’ll have more. Why not just revel in these fleeting moments of their babyhood? Why indeed? I wish I knew.
That being said, I am not opposed to list-making because I think it can be a form of goal-setting, as long as the items that make your list are of your own choosing.