GOALS AND PLAN

One of my biggest life lessons.

I have a friend who is extremely organized and has a perfect plan for everything. They set out detailed daily goals and their objective is to complete what’s on the list. They can estimate the exact time everything should take under normal conditions and try to manage everything so that it only takes that amount of time, give or take a few minutes. For example, when going from one place to another, they can predict how many minutes it will take, and if the Grab car doesn’t move after a few minutes of booking, they’ll cancel and book another ride. Or, when going out to eat and ordering a dish, they estimate how long it should take for the food to be served. If the food isn’t there by the expected time, they’ll be ready to get up and leave. And a high percentage of the time, the day ends with some disappointment because, no matter how big or small, things rarely go according to the planned schedule. Of course, naturally, they’ll be upset because things didn’t go as expected. I’ve witnessed this so many times, but I can’t convince them to relax a bit… wait a little… slow down… sometimes… like, we could tell a stressed-out service worker: “I’m still here, waiting for you. I need you to come here, I need your service. So, please do your best to come pick me up or deliver my order.” From personal experience, I’ve found that sometimes I just need to wait a little longer… but the result is usually that I always get to where I need to be, get the dish I like, finish what I need to do, and go home happily. But I can’t convince my friend to do it my way because my plan would break before it even started.

On the other hand, my work requires a high level of acceptance of things not going as planned, or more accurately, accepting that there’s always a higher plan than my own. Especially during the three main hours of a hypnosis session, I never know what will happen. Regarding external factors, I never know if the internet will stay stable, if my neighbors will start drilling, if there’s a funeral or karaoke nearby, or if the dogs will bark and the cats will meow. Internally, I don’t know what experiences the subject and I will go through, except for the belief that we will always be guided to experience what we can handle. Some sessions really do stretch into late dinners. Some, despite the internet cutting out four times, may stretch for 5 to 6 hours on my end, but only feel like an hour to the subject. Some sessions require me to stay in the position of an observer and not intervene at all. Some challenge me to respect the experience of the other person, because even if my story may seem similar on the surface to the subject’s, I’m not allowed to impose my subjective will on them. I can say that for me, the core goal is to maintain balance for myself and for those around me. Because I realize that in an imbalanced state, the likelihood of creating more problems instead of solving the old ones is high. The goal is to accept that I can adjust my plans when necessary, but truly, when I look back, I see that most things that needed to be done were done. To my friend, I’m someone with no plans. A highly organized person sees someone without plans as a nuisance. But to me, seeing someone who is always planning but ends up disappointed because their plans often fail is quite amusing.