The more I grow up, the more I realise how hard it is to make plans for the future.

As someone who enjoys organisation and planning for the future, I do find it unsettling that I don’t know when big life milestones like buying a house will happen.

I can often find myself so wrapped in trying to untangle the possibilities of the future, I can forget to live in the moment and to make the most out of everyday life because I’m too focused on making sure I’ll be happy in the future.

I suppose this links back to what I was discussing in my last blog (At what point will we feel like a Grow Up) about this unattainable idea of perfection that we strive towards to make us feel ‘grown up’, when in fact we are forgetting to enjoy the moment because we are too focused on feeling like a ‘grown up’ which is a rather unrealistic goal.

Over a glass of wine (which proceeded to then be a bottle) with a friend, we found ourselves on this very topic. It was a mutual feeling of this willingness to take control of our future by trying to prepare for it now, but that we’ve become too future-focused rather than living in the moment.

Perhaps it’s just a reflection on the times, we are part of a generation who were raised to save and save for their futures, and all throughout our schooling we were taught to be forward planning and make sure our acts were helping our futures (aka. revision to guarantee good exam result for good university places).

Switching our mentality to ensure that we are also living in the present moment is hard, we still have to be sensible so that we can still prepare for our futures, but we also need to make sure we are living in and enjoying the present.

For me, that means saying yes more, but also saying no more. I must sound like a walking talking Oxymoron, but what I’m trying to say is that I need to do more of what makes me happy, sometimes that’s hanging out with friends, and others it’s staying in with a good book or doing some embroidery with a new Netflix series.

So I’ve decided; let’s make it normal to not have a plan. Let’s make it the norm to spend less time stressing about the future, and more time enjoying ourselves in the present day.