Two Face

I have a love/hate relationship with the concept of a schedule. There's a big part of me that desires order, appreciates predictability and values routine, but at the same time there's a part of me that loves spontaneity, freedom and just a little bit of chaos. Over the years I've had a really hard time balancing my need to know what I'll be doing with my desire to be able to do whatever comes up and I'm not sure I've got it quite figured out yet.

Today was the first day in two weeks that I didn't have any obligations, so I took some time to clean my room, do some laundry and generally get my life organized. Several hours later, when my living space was vaguely, well, livable- I sat down in front of my computer and tried to organize my time. As always, my attempt to plot out a schedule started out smoothly with my plunking down my work obligations and various routine tasks (baseball on Sundays, basketball on Mondays, showers every third Tuesday, etc.). And, as always, this is where I ran into a problem. When I have something that I want to do, but not a set time that it needs to be done in, then I have a real hard time plugging it into my schedule. Even worse, when I do plug such a thing into my schedule, I have a very hard time actually following through with that time commitment. Even with things that are important to me and that I enjoy, I have a hard time completing because of this awkward and somewhat arbitrary desire to do something, anything different. Anything random. Anything unplanned. Anything... else. I know you won't believe this, but I sometimes even have trouble updating my blog on time!

I feel like I have a tormented soul. Like I'll always be torn between two extremes. Like I'm a real life Harvey Dent. Half neurotic neat freak, half bucking bronco. There a big part of me that enjoys and even cherishes my spontaneous side, a very big part. A part big enough that I worry that th orderly angel on my shoulder (with the day planner in his pocket) is be drowned out more often than he should be.

I appreciate having fun, I enjoy having fun and, in fact, I even believe that having fun is the most important thing in life. I don't have a problem with that. I don't have a problem with going out every night, I don't have a problem switching things up at the last minute and I don't have a problem ditching my blog to go shoot pool every now and then. The only problem I have is finding the right balance between the many many things that I want to do and the many many things that I want to get done.