Tag: planning

Re: Triage

I like words that are used between languages. There must be no borders with communication. Triage is a French word that means to separate out, or to sort. I think sorting is a good thing, in a medical context or any other. When I sort my feelings I’m better able to communicate my thoughts. I can see what is most important after even a bit of reflection and attend to it first, with a plan of action.

My wife is a nurse. She brings her training, attention to detail, and compassion to various situations throughout our days together. We’ve started watching the television series called The Pitt. This is one manic show! Where I find the director’s techniques fascinating, my bride gets pumped by her familiarity with the emergency room intensity. I’m left panting by an episode’s end, and she is energized. We have fun deconstructing the scenes with me asking tons of questions about accuracy and medical procedures.

In the heat of a hospital emergency room it must take everything you’ve got to decide who is the most in need of attention. All your personal prejudices must be back-filed. You would have to suspend your personal opinions. Focussing on the goal of saving lives is paramount. But I marvel how anyone can keep their heart from interfering with their head when it comes to making choices. In most situations, I must first consider my heart, before allowing logic to enter.

Our planet needs a triage event. We need to decide what is important on this home called Earth. There is plenty to indicate our globe is sick and needs attention. I’ll imagine Climate Change as a first priority. Back in 1970, the USA sponsored the first Earth Day, we got a flag and a thumbs up for concern over lack of environmental awareness. In 1979 the first World Climate Conference was arranged by the United Nations, by then we had lots of data showing we knew that things were going to get gnarly on our planet. Still, we left the patient in the waiting room. By 1995, with things not decided, The Conference of Parties (COP) held the first of 29 (and counting) annual conferences to get a U.N. consensus on how to help an exhausted planet. I read the news today (Oh Boy!) and it’s not looking good as data shows the melting glaciers do not have long to exist. The patient is going to die before getting a bed for continuing care. Our Earth has been left in the metaphorical hospital hallway to await its fate while we capitalist, nationalistic humans worry over who is going to pay the bill.

It comes down to priorities. Setting goals is hard in business, harder in personal life and hardest when it comes to international solidarity. It’s easier for me to think of the planet as I do my partner. She will always come first; my life and happiness depend on her health. Once her needs are met I can move on to other matters.

That’s life.

Re: Plan

At one point in my sister’s life she was offered a job as an assistant city planner. I was surprised until I realized it was part of my mother’s plans for her. My sister and I were opposites in the ways of organizing one’s life: she was ever the spontaneous type, while I was very careful about every step I took. My mother, on the other hand, loved to create objectives for others. When my sis declined the offer of the city job my mom behaved like the Big Bang had just occurred. I watched the fireworks and vowed never to organize another soul’s life.

Perhaps it is a sign of the times when we let professionals plan our life events. Travel Advisors, Tour Guides, Fitness Trainers, Personal Shoppers and Menu Planners are some of the helping professions that suggest many are opting away from self care. Wedding planners have been around for a while but the occupation Life Coach suggests some of us have lost the skill to manage our own lives. My sister may have benefitted from a Personal Manager. She associated setting goals with a lack of freedom. I am amazed when others don’t prepare for their own future. My recently deceased father-in-law had no notion of planning for his declining years. At 94, on his deathbed, he said, “I didn’t see this coming.” Leaving his daughter and wife to sort out what he had left behind.

To plan is a part of my DNA so I like to be the one having a plan of action. I don’t want to be some piece of krill or bit of biota floating on the breeze or drifting in the sea spray. I may not always know where I want to go, but I like having a system that tells me I’m headed somewhere with purpose. Recently I was flustered by a friend who came to spend time with my wife. The visit had a next door neighbour drop-in feel but she came with her husband and flew across three provinces. With flimsy aspirations for a whole week, they had left it up to us to create a game plan. My lover rose to their expectations in spectacular fashion, leaving me feeling like a caught fish helplessly gasping for air in the bottom of a boat.

I like to be ready for a rainy day, yet I won’t go so far as to have an earthquake/tsunami emergency kit in my pantry. I feel comfort when my savings account is at a certain self-imposed amount. I don’t jump in the car and head off without an idea of my itinerary and an old fashioned foldable road map is in my glove box. To plan is to have peace of mind, it’s a way to corral the unknowables of time and place. Planning is the guide book of life. A character in the book Shark Heart by Emily Habeck used this logic when describing the value of making plans: A Plan leads to Control which leads to Peace.

Re: Scene

My wife and I have been talking about scenarios on a daily basis. We both like to have some grasp of the future so we plot out possible scenes as a playwright might. Shepherding two seniors through end of life stages is no easy task, especially when they have so little intention to be part of the present scene. One will say it is too early for such talk while the other will prefer to listen to audio books. Both of them effectively leaving it to us to write what could happen next. Hard to make any headway when some of the players don’t even want to read the script, let alone help to write it.

Children are often being told not to make a scene. Parents hate to have attention drawn to them in a public place. My first wife had the effective strategy of scooping up our toddlers the second they misbehaved in a store. Into the car they would go for a chilly drive home where they would be confined to their room. Sounds harsh, yet it would always be followed up with a conversation on how the scene was seen by all of the actors involved. Kids are predisposed to act out their frustrations, fears and wants, yet they must learn the consequences and be guided towards solutions.

I used to accompany my artistic father on sketching walks. Rather than take a polaroid shot of a scenic view, he would sit for a bit on a small canvas foldable chair and focus his attention on picturesque details. He would make notes of colours so when he returned to his apartment he could use his pastels or oil paint to best affect. As a result, I fell in love with scenery in general and landscapes in particular. Even when I have been in a confined space I have tried to trick my mind into seeing a vista. I’ve found that even in a small backyard or on an apartment balcony I could visualize elements of a grand canyon just by narrowing my view to marvel at the details of the scene.

Nothing makes my emotions tingle so quickly as a well acted scene in a stage play, television serial or big screen film. When a scene can include the expanse of magnificent scenery, well, that memory forms a bond in my brain that forever informs the scenes of my own life. For example, I can recall the intricately placed scenery from a production of La Boheme my wife and I viewed at the Opera House in Oslo, Norway. This magnificent piece of architecture was a treat for the senses both inside and outside. My favourite film of all time, Lawrence of Arabia, has so many scenic scenes that I am awestruck by the planning it must have taken to make this masterwork of cinemascope.

Moments in time can be scenes from which lifetime memories are built. From birth to death  there are opportunities to wonder. The more involved we are, the more vivid the scenery.

Re: Lifetime

I went to a funeral gathering to honour a champion of our community. It was my first outing involving a collective in a long time due to Covid19 restrictions. The crowd spilled out from the community hall into the adjacent garden where extra chairs and a PA system had been set up so the speakers could be easily heard. It was an event of a lifetime.

The deceased was a lady who had become one of my first friends since retirement. My wife and I would often see her taking an active role in our city. She would always smile as she told her latest news and thoughts. Over my lifetime I have met few who have shown such grace and citizenship. She led by action and demonstrated how an individual can make a difference.

My young niece wants some tips regarding retirement plans. She is focussed on keeping her working lifetime as short as possible. Unlike many in my generation who have spent a lifetime waiting to finally do those dreamed of things, this hard working woman wants to build that future now.

Most of us give our labour with a hope that we can emerge in a better place, with a goal accomplished. Watching athletes compete at the Olympic Games this summer I’m reminded that sometimes the best laid plans sometimes must be deferred. These games were postponed for a year which disturbed the competitors’ schedules, likely causing angst over lifetime achievement plans. When earlier Olympics were boycotted by some countries I remember feeling empathy for those crushed by the reality of years spent training to get in peak form only to be thwarted by a government’s decree. Some may have lost lifesavings in the endeavour. I’m happy to see some of my tax dollars being used as a lifeline to support these determined individuals.

Somethings can be described as lifetime events such as the birth of a child, a death, a career achievement, a sporting medal or an election victory. Imagine the feeling you must have if you are credited with being someone’s lifesaver. We can claim responsibility for some singular lifetime moments yet not all momentous occasions are entirely in our hands. Recently a town close to me had a record breaking heat wave. It was reported as a ‘Once in a Lifetime’ weather event. As a kid these phenomenon might have been called a ‘freak of nature’. Now, as a people, we are realizing that many of these weather anomalies are very much of our own making.

An ad on television added to my train of thought. “Buy a lottery ticket and all your dreams may come true.” boasted the promoter. My niece wouldn’t rely on that advice. My deceased friend saw value in human currency to find a lifetime full of rewards. Luck or misfortune can sometimes sit beside you at life’s card table. Sometimes you’d be wise to walk away to play a different game. In the long game of a lifetime, a dream come true is a yearning that has been answered.

Re: Assurance

There is great satisfaction in figuring something out and then taking the time and energy to make it all work. Artists rehearse and rehearse. Editing has a purpose: to try to remove doubt, to seek assurance that the work will be the best it can be.

I think of the word assurance in a forward way. By planning ahead I feel I can cover whatever eventualities might occur and then “come hell or high water” I have some assurance that my plan will reach a preferred outcome. I’m not one for leaving things to chance. I don’t want to gamble my life with a ‘wait and see’ attitude.

Assurance is different from insurance in my mind. Insurance is a bet you make that something is going to go wrong and then you will be compensated. I don’t want compensation. I want confirmation that I have taken steps to reduce the inevitable risks of life. Shit will happen. Assurance is what I provide for myself by checking. I look to see if I am on the right track. I refer to my self designed map to assuage doubt.

I can be slothful, but only after my plans have been made. My plans often come in the form of forecast. I like to see the future as I would like it to be, then take the steps to arrive there. It’s logical to me. Sometimes I will plan down to the smallest detail, laying out various scenarios in my head. The downside of this is that I will often be disappointed.

Being a planner has its benefits and its baggage. When you wish to be in control you must commit time to planning. Truth is, I am not a ‘random’ person. That philosophy appeals to me on a Zen level; live for today and all that. But randomness is too close to chaos for my liking. My planning is my security blanket that I wrap around me when chaos reigns. I feel I have developed a set of strategies for when I have to surrender control. I’m getting better at going with the flow when others are making the decisions yet my patience is still tested until I have some assurance of the outcome.

Some have said that plans are for fools because there is always the unknown eventuality. Robbie Burns in his Ode to a Mouse captured this in the oft repeated line; “the best laid schemes o’ mice and men”. By seeking assurance I am not so naive as to believe that I can eliminate all random acts. I know that you can’t plan for everything. There are some things that we just can’t imagine might happen, these are the unpredictables or the “unknown unknowns” as Dick Cheney once said. He also spoke of known unknowns, which I believe, with planning, you can ameliorate to some extent.

I want adventure in my life. I want to explore even the deepest forest. Assurance to me is about feeling confident that, even if I do get lost, I can find my way back home.