What is YOUR deferred life plan?

by Paul Goodchild on November 2, 2010

What on earth does it mean – your deferred life plan?  Basically it’s this: your deferred life plan is exactly what you desire to be doing now?  The thing/lifestyle/state which are you putting off until after you have done what you think must be done first.  Perhaps the following quote will explain where I’m headed with this one.

Rather than working to the exclusion of everything else in order to flood our bank accounts in the hope that we can eventually buy back what we have missed along the way, we need to live life fully now with a sense of its fragility.

‘The Monk and the Riddle’, Randy Komisar

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it!  Who do you know, in any level of any industry, and in any position, who is living their desired life right now, and not busting the gut working, saving, planning and investing for some intangible notion that exists far off, in an obscure future?  I don’t know many…

The rules of this game…

…are made by you.  Sure, you probably adopted most of them from your friends, family and society, but it doesn’t mean they’re valid.

“But everyone lives like this!”

No, not everyone lives like “this”.  There is nobody telling you that you must live your life according to a specific script, except you.  If you are allowing someone to tell you, it’s not their fault.  They do so because that’s what you want – you permit it.

There is nothing to say that you can’t integrate your desires with your life right now.  Perhaps you can work, or find work in a fashion that allows you to follow them.

“It’s not that easy!”

Nobody said it was easy!  But your alternative option is spending your greatest asset – time – during your best years that are full of youth and vitality, working and earning money only to have it ready and waiting for you when you’re in the slowest and increasingly restrictive years of your life.  Not only that, if you trust your money to your government welfare and pension schemes, you need only retire during a recession to have it lost on you.

Not an appealing proposition, but yet we nearly all fall into that trap of doing what must be done before what we want to do.

You are already where you’re meant to be

I can hear some people say this in response to this questioning, and there are times I’d say the same thing, given the right context.  But there is a danger for some that responding like this marries you to inaction.  Everything you have done and experienced in your life has brought you to this point.  It isn’t right or wrong, it just is.  You can look back on some of your decisions and regret them, but you’re better off going to the bottom of your garden to count the fairies that live there.  It’s worth taking time to consider the things you’re doing now that you feel, for whatever reason, must be done before you can follow your heart’s true desires.

It’s difficult to get a grasp on this issue until you are clear about what you are deferring. Perhaps you don’t have a plan for what follows – that just means you’re working away so that when it’s all finished you can get on with the task of doing … nothing.  Not the most inspiring goal ever.

Take a moment to be clear about the things you want.

Me, myself and I

I’m raising this topic because I’m reading The Monk and the Riddle, by Randy Komisar.  A great read and I’m only half-way through!  If you’re giving some consideration to how you’re currently living out your life and wondering how it correlates or contrasts to how you’d like to be living it, you should give this a look.  It doesn’t have the answers as to how to get to where you want to go, but it prompts the reader to consider the big ‘why’ of their lives.

I’d love to hear what you think and get your feedback.  If you find this article interesting or the start of an good discussion, please feel free to share it using Twitter or by clicking the Facebook button below.  Thank you for visiting and contributing!

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