Not By the Book

     In the fictional town of St. Canard, when there's trouble you call DW. DW, of course, refers to Darkwing Duck, the terror that flaps in the night, says "Let's get dangerous" (how often do you hear that on a kids show?) and the the titular character of the 1990s Disney cartoon with the same name. There's one episode of Darkwing Duck in particular where Darkwing is sent on a mission  by an agency but is forced to begrudgingly go by the agency's manual instead of his normal, unpredictable ways. In the end, Darkwing Duck does accomplish this mission and did it "by the book" - by ripping the book up and causing a giant vacuum cleaner to explode. But I digress... 

     In the 1989 film Dead Poets Society, Mr. Keating (portrayed by the late Robin Williams) has his students start to read an introductory essay from a poetry book about how to rate or score poems. A few sentences in, he instructs his students to rip out the essay pages and throw them away. The students are reluctant to do so (much more so than Darkwing Duck was), but comply. In fact, he encouraged them to rip up the essay.  There's just something cathartic about ripping stuff up, whether it's a manual or essay about poetry. And there are times where it absolutely necessary to rip up a page or throw out the book in our lives. 

     I like to make plans and have everything planned out in my life. I'm a person of routine or creature of habit - wake up at about the same time every day, eat the same few meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, go to the grocery store on Saturday morning around 8, do the same things in the evenings and weekends, etc. As I type that out, I promise that I'm a human and not a well-oiled machine. That said, if something disrupts my plans or I have to make adjustments, I end up feeling out a sync - even when it's a good thing like traveling or having family in town. I used to have a friend at work that would joke about how much that I have mapped out. At the end of the day, he would guess what I was going to eat for dinner based on the night of the week - and he was right more often than not. If I said I was going to do something, he'd say it's something that I've had planned for weeks, even if it's something trivial like going to Popeyes for lunch on a Saturday. 

     So if you couldn't already tell, I like plans and having my ducks in a row, as they say. But sometimes, I think I'm so busy trying to follow my plans that I forget to actually enjoy them. It becomes going through the motions and doing something a certain night because I always do that. I also end up being reluctant to do something that may be more fun and enjoyable just because it doesn't match up with the plans I had in my head. This can especially be true if something pops up at the last minute. I get uncomfortable and can end up stressing out for no reason. All because of something I mentally planned. 

     All of this is to say, there can truly be a value in not abiding by plans and throwing them out. Life's not a book or a script. It's okay to improvise on the spot and change the way something unfolds. If we make our lives a script, we'll become so focused on following it that we won't truly enjoy it. We'll focus on doing something because we're supposed to do something, not because we want to do something. When we throw out our plans, we start to accept that life won't always unfold the way we want it to. In fact, it just might unfold better than in our plans. Having plans can make some things feel forced or scripted. Life should never be that way. Conversely, we need to let things happen naturally and let it all play out on its own. 

     In reality, this can be hard to live out. It's something that I've been learning a lot about lately, to not get fixated on plans and to let things play out naturally. At the end of the day, not everything is going to go according to plan and things will pop up - good and bad. But we shouldn't let that stress us out. We can rest knowing that it ultimately isn't our plans or our time - it's God's. There's a saying that man plans and God laughs. Proverbs 19:21 says "Many plans are made in man's heart, but the purpose of the LORD will prevail".

     This doesn't just apply to plans, either. This can apply to books, too. Books are great and can teach us a lot, but there are limits to them. There are things that only life experiences can teach us that books quite simply can't. When reflecting on my college times, it came to my attention that the most important things that I learned in college didn't come from a college textbook - and there's a reason for that. The life lessons that I learned quite simply are ones that an economics textbook can't teach me. A textbook can tell you what "group polarization" is list formulas for calculating the rate of return on an investment, but those end up being more facts than lessons. It's only through life and the lessons learned that we can actually apply them and learn from them. It's also why there is a difference between being "book smart" and "street smart". At the end of the day, we're people, not books. 

     One caveat here: books are important. John Wooden said to "drink deeply from good books, especially the Bible." So we shouldn't pull a Fahrenheit 451 and start burning books and throwing them away, especially not the Bible. That said the Bible gives us an example of the dangers of being 100% by the book. The Pharisees followed the law so religiously that when Jesus performed some of His miracles, they criticized Him for performing them on the Sabbath instead of being in awe and giving Him glory. This fixation they had on keeping the law and appearing as righteous people led to them crucifying and killing Jesus. 

      None of this is to say that we should never make plans and just assume everything will be sorted out. Hard to imagine that would go well during a big presentation. After all, the motto for both Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts is "Be prepared". If anything, there's a good mix to be had. When I traveled to Idaho last September, I had spent months planning what I wanted to do and where I wanted to eat, but there were also times on the trip where I made changes on the fly and let things play out. Sometimes the best and most memorable moments on those trips or in our lives are the ones that we don't have planned. They end up being better than we ever could have planned. 

     Now if you'll excuse me, I better get going. After all, I have other plans - plans that just might involve Popeyes. That is, unless those plans change and become something else. Either way, it will all unfold according to plan, just not my own.