It’s Ok to Have Plans…With Yourself
Plans with yourself are just as important as those with others
Ah, the benefits that I am continuing to discover on my aging journey.
In the past, as an introvert, I would struggle to come up with reasons to not attend something social if I didn’t feel like it.
I am not saying that we should never be social. We need each other, we need our communities and friends. I am grateful for them all.
However, in the past, if I had made any kind of plan for what to do for the day, alone, plans that felt important and like something that I really wanted and needed to do for myself, those plans never felt as valid as if I had made plans with someone else. If anyone called and invited me to do something else with them or with a group, and they asked if I had any plans, I thought the honest answer was no. No, I didn’t have any plans.
To be honest, I may have lied in my past, making up some excuse if I really did not want to go to a particular function. But I never felt like I had a good enough reason to decline anything unless I already had plans. Plans with someone else. There was always a twinge of guilt for saying no for what I thought was no good reason.
What a way to refer to myself!
With aging, I have come to a deeper appreciation of time, of each moment. I now can feel the truth — that there is a limit to the number of moments that I have left. And I want to be more intentional as to how I spend the remaining moments of this precious life that I have been given.
So, the answer to others’ questions of whether I have plans or not is yes, I do have plans. I have plans for and with myself. And that’s a valid enough reason. I now know that it’s just as important to keep commitments to myself as I believe it is to keep commitments with others.
I am not referring to the easy kind of free-flowing plans that I sometimes make that are open to change. Accepting an invitation might be the best thing to do in those moments. Opportunities to connect when that feels like it might be a good thing to do.
And there are times when I know that I need to do whatever it is that I have planned and to do it by myself. That I need that time with me to center, to quiet myself, to get grounded, to hear my voice inside and what it is saying to me and what it may tell me that I need. To hear what has been going on inside me lately. To listen. Quietly. To my own truth.
An added benefit of this is that I am more present when I am with others. Because I have filled myself.
So yes, today, I have plans. With a dear close friend. With me. And I am looking forward to catching up. Being quiet and listening and hearing. Breathing into the stillness. Breathing into myself.
