I tend to be a control freak. You see, I have a master plan for everything. Some folks who have trouble sleeping count sheep at night, I re-work my world.
Now I’m old and wise enough to know — while a plan is a good thing –many, many things are beyond our control.I am learning that discipline, flexibility and perseverance are often more important than a good plan.
I had the ultimate business plan for Two-Lane Livin’ Magazine. I spent nine months working on that thing. And while we are still moving along the main time line of the plan, many points and details have changed along the way.
For the magazine, I felt creating the plan was fairly black and white.
But I didn’t realize there was another plan — just as big — being created by our hearts, and not our heads.
It’s called The Garden.
At first, we gardened because we wanted healthy non-engineered food to eat. And then, we gardened more because of the money we saved on food throughout the winter because of our harvest.
But now, we garden because we no longer want to exist without that high-quality food and that savings.
Of course, this all developed in the background of our lives. We didn’t sit down and plan to have a garden as big as a soccer field. We didn’t plan to add an herb garden, or a hot bed, or a flock of chickens. This is where our desire for healthy, we-grew-it-ourselves, home made flavor foods has led us.
I was so busy enacting and processing the plan for our magazine, I didn’t realize that we actually needed a plan to deal with where our gardens have led us.
The computer and desk that is the hub of our magazine cannot compete with the lure of the gardens on a sunny day. Deadlines for printers and contracts seem less important than time lines for planting by the moon and the sun. Plant trays are examined and coddled with attention far surpassing the editing level.
This is a pleasant surprise. The workaholic has found something to draw her away from her work. Of course, that thing, the garden, is actually more work — but it is satisfying and sweaty, exhilarating and exhausting, and includes two things the desk and the computer cannot provide: exercise and time outdoors.
Time disconnected from “the job.” Time on a task that only requires my own approval, meeting my own standards.
Of course, Two-Lane Livin’ Magazine is a priority in our lives. But how liberating to discover it is not the only one.
