Sometimes I think I enjoy planning life more than I enjoy living it

When it comes to going to the gym, while I do genuinely like the act of lifting weights, what I really like is sitting down the week before and planning out which days I'll be working out and exactly which exercises I'll perform (with the attendant number of reps, sets, etc.)

In the same vein, Sunday afternoon is one of my favorite times because it's when I sit down and type my to-do list for the coming week into Microsoft OneNote.

And while I've never really had a vacation I didn't enjoy, to me nothing beats the fun and excitement of actually planning the vacation.

Do you see a pattern here?

I am by nature a planner. This is good thing to be in many respects, as it provides some degree of control – or at least the illusion of control – in an otherwise chaotic world.

But the drawbacks of being an inveterate planner are perhaps equally apparent. You don't always respond well when a plan (inevitably) goes awry. And you'll never be known as the most fun and spontaneous guy in the world.

There's also a tendency, at least in my case, to skip from one life plan to another in a futile attempt to discover the perfect way of living.

In my heart I know there is no such thing as "the perfect way of living," but my head insists it's out there somewhere and that, with each iteration of my life plan, I get that much closer to it.

To be clear, by "life plan" I mean a philosophy or approach to everything that consumes my time, both at home and at work. How should I do my job? How should I eat and exercise? When will I find time for spiritual nourishment? How much of my fall and winter nights should I devote to PA announcing gigs?

I try one life plan for a few months, then when I discover where it falls short, I switch to another. Sometimes these are small tweaks, while other times I make large-scale, wholesale changes.

All of which begs the question of why I can't just acknowledge that circumstances vary and I need to take things a day at a time, adapting to whatever comes my way without searching for a one-size-fits-all template.

In short, why don't I just, you know, live life?

As if often the case when I examine my own personality quirks, I don't have an answer to that question.

BUT...it's on tomorrow's to-do list to check some books out of the library that might explain why I am how I am.