Live life thinking

The other night, I was driving back with Lucie from a friend's wedding, and I started to reveal what I rarely have done (except to the Gentleman Friend, I can't remember revealing it to anyone, in fact), which is Plan Z. Plan Z goes like this: if it all goes to shit, I'll gather up what money I have, and go and work for a volunteering organisation overseas: something that a) I believe in, and 2) that'll have me.

When I was younger, this was Plan B. It's been downgraded because I'm older, and there are other things I'd rather do because they'd more readily let me build a relationship, a home and (maybe) a family. I could say other nice words about realising that it's progressively less common for a given job or career to be "for life", or that a corollary is the multitude of possible other jobs; and it'd be true to say I've thought those thoughts. But if I'm honest, it's in recognition of my selfishness that Plan B is now Plan Z.

Sometimes, a few things happen in quick succession to reinforce a bubbling under-current of thought. It's a form of synchronicity, I suppose. The under-current in this case is that my job is up for competition at interview in 6 months or so. If I'm successful, I get to carry on in this career (which I mostly love) for another few years. If I'm not, money ends in the spring, and I "get" to move on in a different direction. One peculiar reinforcement came when I was watching Glee. The more that you know about my life, the less surprised you could be that I really enjoy the show. There are good lines in it, as well as good music, and there was one line during the last show that talked about visualising possible futures in order to choose between them. While I don't need to be on a stage to visualise mine, it seems like a smart thing to do anyway, and I'm usually all for visualising things (usually in a more mundane way like sketches, graphs, 3-D renderings) to understand them.

After I came out, I once talked to the Fourth Man about a places to go and work; he advised me that there were places I might want to think about the kind of life I'd have. Tokyo turned out to be better than I could have imagined. And as Ho Bro says, there are other good places on Earth, too. That's no longer the only consideration, though, because now people (plural) are involved. Maybe visualising what life would be, not just where, will help to choose.