Plan B

Please don't judge me for this post. I'm afraid it will be a little snapshot of how my mind sometimes works in very stupid ways.

For years I held onto an escape route. My plan B. If my whole life goes south due to whatever stressful situation I am currently freaking out about, my 'plan b' kicks in.

My plan b is very simple: I will move out west to a national forest in CO or WY and become a forest ranger and live in a campground. (Dead serious).

There are people who do this for a living - I've met them - they work for national forests by being 'campground hosts' and don't really make any money other than what they need to survive. Most of these people are retired and it frankly sounds amazing.

I used this plan b as a stress-management tool for years. "If everything falls apart, this is what I'll do." "If I get sued for everything - forget this and I'm moving west". Austin knew about this and laughingly said he would move with me when I need to.

I'm ashamed to say I truly relied to some extent on this plan b until just a few months ago. I was flying home from a job and dealing with a larger-than-normal stress load, and I was defaulting to my escape plan - when it hit me.

I can never run away. There is no running away. There is no escape plan, no plan b, no national forest campground. This little atlas can't shrug. I can't run because running won't make the problems go away. Running only means that someone else would have to step in and clean up, and that is not an option. The only option is taking ownership and responsibility for whatever situation I want to run from.

This is all stupid and obvious to anyone who knows anything, but to me that night it was a crystal clear revelation. In that moment I felt the weight of adulthood and responsibility come down on my shoulders. Something in my brain clicked and I think part of me grew up, in a way that all the 4:30 morning alarms and 15 hour days had not caused me to grow.

How has this changed my life? Other than no longer using plan b as a stress reducer, I am making conscious efforts to accept responsibility and ownership for fixing problems. It is so tempting to respond to an error or an accusation with a deflection (it wasn't me, it was so-and-so!) or a defense. But guess what. If I am taking this adulthood thing seriously I just have to accept responsibility regardless of whether I am at fault or not - and fix it.

So that's it. That is how embarassingly simple my mind works.

Next step is to get rid of plan C, which is best represented by a note on my desk that says "someday you'll be dead and this won't matter." Wish me luck ;)