Hello my beautiful friend,
I hope you’re doing well and that your thanksgiving weekend was and will continue to be eventful. I’m grateful and appreciate you immensely for always listening.
You truly mean so much to me. I may be divulging my emotions out into the abyss, but at least I have the opportunity to do so… and god damnit I feel so lucky.
So thank you.
This morning I awoke wanting to write this - I don’t know why.
I just can’t help myself -
Five Year Plans Are Stupid
My mother and I were strolling in her neighborhood the other day, and when I mean the other day, I really mean about eleven months ago.
We were catching up, and she looked at with me with this very pensive Asian-motherly face: it’s a face Asian mothers make towards their children right when they’re about to ask “one of those questions”.
If you know, you know.
It’s the question that acts as if they’re curious about your life, but in reality, they’re more listening to see whether or not you’re on your way of becoming the biggest disappointment to the family.
Questions like…
“What exactly do you do at work?”
“Are your friends also professionals?”
“How are you making money?”
“How much money are you making?”
“Are you dating someone that has a good job?”
“I heard your cousin just graduated from medical school. Remember when you wanted to go to law school? Is that something you’re still thinking of?”
If you’re a 1st or 2nd generation American immigrant, you probably understand these types of questions. They can be asked passively, other times they’re asked aggressively. Regardless, they all come from a place of extreme-judgement - *coughs* I mean - concern. Yes, extreme concern.
Your parent(s) love you.
So here we are, my mother is no longer strolling, she’s pacing. Her furrowed brow begins to scrunch as she tries to hide her judgement with a smile.
She darts her eyes at me and asks…
“So Jonathan, what’s your five year plan? Do you even have one?”
Sigh.
Let me explain -
I love my mom.
If you google the word “hero” in my head, you’ll see a million pages of search results of my mother. How she has had to persevere as a single mom - raising seven children, selling our home, moving into a tiny apartment shack, working minimum wage jobs, relying on welfare government checks, all while finding a way to becoming a full-time pharmacist again… all at the age of 60.
When I graduated college and she was there readjusting my Filipino Graduation Lei, behind the minivan, behind the crowd and the rest of my siblings, I asked her…
“Mom, now that I’ve graduated how do I take care of you? What do you want me to do? How can I help you more?”
Without a hesitation or pause, she just looked up at me said,
“Jonathan, the best way you can help, the best way you can take care of me, is by taking care of yourself.”
I know. son-of-a-bitch - she’s good.
Okay let’s get away from that detour (ha).
Here we are, back catching up in her neighborhood, and she’s just asked me -
Jonathan, what’s your five year plan? Do you even have one?
I stop strolling.
She stops pacing.
I look at her and say,
“Mom I love you, but no I don’t have a five year plan. In fact, I don’t like that question. It’s not a good question. Maybe it’s because I failed every time in my own pursuits of my own “five year plans” but god damnit I hate that question”
“Please don’t say God’s name in vain.”
“Sorry”
Let me explain.
#1
The most obvious reasons from all the other reasons is that we’re not fortune tellers. We may have predictions of stock market pricing, datasets on datasets on human behavior, trends that often repeat itself, but on a micro level, it’s really hard to predict what might happen to any of us -
There are wars.
Pandemics.
Breakups.
Divorces.
New partners.
Random encounters.
Deaths.
Life just being life in all its random glory.
There is always going to be a tree, a hitch, a rock, small pebbles that our feet will interact with throughout our journey in our lives. And, I think having a five year plan can cloud that these perceived “inconveniences” or “blocks” are obstacles that we have to overcome. When in fact, they’re rather an alternative opportunity to a road in life that we are supposed to pursue.
For example, when I graduated college, I told myself that I was going to either get into politics and/or go to law school. Though nothing worked.
I hated working in politics.
I hated working with lawyers.
I hated inside sales.
I tried so many things to a point where I ended up getting fired from 13 jobs.
These were all great experiences to have, which have helped me get where I am today. But Imagine.
Imagine if I kept going in this pursuit of wanting to become a lawyer… all because of this “five year plan”. I wouldn’t have seen that all of these hiccups were actually wonderful alternatives and events pushing to be the creative director today.
And, I’m still not done being open minded about my career options. Yes, who the fuck knows where I’ll be - but all I know is that currently - if I stuck with my fiv- year plan - I wouldn’t be happy doing what I’m doing now.
#2
Parkinson’s Law.
Parkinson's Law is the adage that "work expands to fill the time available for its completion." Basically, if you have a deadline, the work will often take up all the time allotted to that deadline.
Essentially, you’ll procrastinate until right at the moment you need to get the assignment done. To those who have written essays, how many times have you pulled an all-nighter just to turn in your essay at 11:59?
To those who drive, how many times have you almost got into car accidents trying to get to your destination right at 6:31 - where you barely miss the title card of the movie for just a few seconds?
That’s Parkinson Law.
In the beginning, you think have lots of time.
In the end, you realize you don’t.
Both are bad.
In the first instance, you can get complacent and you think, I’m only in my first year out of five. I’m good. I’ve got time. Pretty soon you get lazy, you let yourself go, you’re naked alone in your bed with a bunch of lotion… realizing you’re just wasting hours of your day.
In the second instance, it can make you feel as if you’re falling behind. The “oh shit, it’s been two years and I’m not even a day closer to accomplishing my five-year-goal! How the fuck am I going to get there?”
I know this feeling all too well - all of this which bleeds into my last point.
#3
It doesn’t keep you present.
A year ago I was in the fresh blue water of Cala Comte, a beach in the south west of the Spanish island of Ibiza. I was there for work.
Swimming trunks. The warmth on my face. Beautiful girls everywhere… and even through all of that I wasn’t enjoying myself.
I was thinking of all the things I’ve had yet to accomplish.
I was thinking of all the failures.
I was thinking how far behind I was from many of my peers.
How I was so. far away. from. where. I. needed to be - all because of the dreams I thought I would’ve accomplished at a certain period in my life.
This is what I think the Five-Year-Plan does to you. It keeps you unhappy. It keeps you from celebrating your small wins. It keeps you from understanding how much you’ve accomplished. It keeps you from just loving yourself.
It makes you go, “you cannot enjoy your life” / “you can’t appreciate your life” until you have a six pack, until you are financially free, until you’ve accomplished your goal… on and on and on and on.
Fuck.
That.
I’m in the blue waters of Cala Comte and I can’t even enjoy myself all because I don’t have fucking calves of steel and I’m not a millionaire?
So what’s the alternative, what’s the right question to ask?
I don’t know.
I’m new to this, but I will say that this year I’ve never been as secure as I have been from past years. This year I have a better handle of my finances. Even though this year has not been my most profitable year. I will say -
this part will be a lot of the usages of 'I’ egotistical statements’
I paid off all my credit cards.
I paid off every single friend and loan poker shark I’ve owed money to.
I have my own queen sized bed: my first bed since 2012.
I have savings.
I have the ability to be more spontaneously social with my curated wonderful group of loyal friends.
I finished writing a pilot where my writing partner and I were lucky to have meetings about… before the strike of course.
I have taken new hobbies like improv and acting lessons.
I still go crazy. I still have high anxiety. I still have mounts and mounts and fucking mounts of pain and depression. But at least I feel more secure in my life and believe it or not, more motivated than ever before.
Because I’m learning, through this new adage, which I’ll tell you a second… how I live by day to day right now. The question I’ve been asking myself is this:
What does my perfect day look like?
If you must know, my perfect day looks like this:
I wake up at around 6/6:30am in my bed, and I turn over to see my beautiful partner in shorts, a white tee, slowly waking up next to me.
We get ready and I may go for a quick walk out in the sun. Maybe an easy 30-40 minute workout. Maybe it’s a bite with my partner. All I know is that my morning is where I want to proceed with a quick sweat, or it’s a morning where I get to read and write a bit for a few minutes.
Head off to work in my writing studio (or someone’s writing studio). Yes, we’re creating stories, bouncing ideas off one creator to another. Maybe it’s one of those days where we’re shooting one of these stories. We’re creating. It’s so much fun. It’s filled with ideas. It gets us going. Collaborative art making.
Once work is done, I head off to a tiny event or a museum or just a place where I can calmly socialize with a group of new or old friends. Then, while there, my wonderful partner arrives, and I look at her, she looks at me, and silently in that circle, I mouth “I love you”. She smiles back and mouths it back. We hold hands.
Then we’re back home and maybe after a quick read of a book or, more importantly, a conversation… we fall asleep.
This is my perfect day.
And, I’ve been thinking what are the activities, habits, and things I should do today that gets me closer to that perfect day. I don’t have a five year plan of metrics or insights or money. I’m just thinking “does this get me closer to my perfect day”
It’s all about small fucking steps.
Small day to day wins.
For example, every time I get a paycheck, I put money into my savings or investment accounts because I know that will get me closer to my perfect day. Also it keeps me from gambling any of my money.
I have a pr0n blocker on all my devices because I know that this will get me closer to respecting woman and pushing me to find intimate connection outside of a computer screen.
I try to read and write whenever I have the time in that day… because I have to keep this writing muscle going.
The list goes on -
I’m not perfect.
I fuck up often.
I relapse often.
I still get anxiety.
I still have weekly therapy sessions to handle the spider-verse of depression that crawls out of my heart sometimes. But even through all of that, I do feel more secure than I have ever before. I feel like as if at least, at least, things are manageable.
But, as my mentor KarenXCheng says, who the fuck knows what I’m talking about.
Who the fuck knows…
Everyone has their own way of accomplishing their goals. Their own way of making their life manageable. Mine is “will this decision help me get closer to my perfect day?”
Anyway, back to my mother.
She hears my answer.
We begin to stroll back towards her house.
“So Mom, that’s why I think that ‘five year plan question’ doesn’t fit me…”
“Okay son.”
“Question, Mom.”
“Yes?”
“What does your perfect day look like?”
Thanks for listening
12:15pm - Philz Coffee Shop
Ventura, California