planning

I wouldn't call myself well traveled, but I've had the good fortune to take trips to some really cool places with some great people. I'll pick a weekend exploring a new city over a day at an amusement park or a shopping excursion any day of the week. The one thing that I think I've gotten down is planning.

When I'm planning, I'm conscientious of the people I'm traveling with.  If someone isn't a walker, I set them up with a nice gelateria close to where we're exploring or set up a meeting time, if someone wants to stick their toes in the Mediterranean, I find us a route or have a guide find us a route with a pasteleria along the way. If I'm with Pengs, we'll enjoy a winery or three that gives us carte blanche in the tasting room and follow it up with a gastronomic tasting. I'd rather be known to travel well than thought of as well traveled.

There are hiccups, of course: occasionally we get lost-I'll readily admit that my sense of direction was lost in the packaging process, but we have an objective and we aren't squandering precious time.  I get the expressions, "be here now" and "enjoy the journey", but depending on the here or the path I'll honestly reply, "no thanks"... Site seeing on Rue Saint Denis isn't a good idea when people are assessing your market value-- sometimes its smarter to plan on how you're going to get out and what you're never going to do again than take in the ambience.

As irritating as the expression "if you fail to plan, you plan to fail" is, when you're a type A personality and you are being dragged around through indecision and poor communication in 90+ degree weather, you can't help but realizing that planning more than patience really is a virtue.

Yes, we all need to be resilient when things don't go according to plan, something I'm well aware that I need to work on... but I've never believed in bending to the weak or wasteful and I never believed that patience was a substitute for planning.

Moral of the story:

Free plane tickets aren't really "free". Everyone in this world has an ulterior motive.
I am planning where I'm going to be living after grad school and following through with my benchmarks to get done.
I will no longer settle.
I am not willing people to be what they aren't. I accept it and respect them and myself enough not to waste any more time on "trying"-- tenacity without reflection is no better than stubbornness.
I am over it.
I enjoy the great stuff-- I know what I want and I'm not wasting anymore of my time or energy on anything else.

So, yes, I'll attempt to enjoy more of the ride, but I have no qualms with bailing when the ride is absolutely pointless.