Schedule Killed the Action/Adventure Star

I use Google Calendar every day. It's incredibly handy and helpful, and all my appointments and events are on there. With alerts, I can be reminded of events that I might otherwise forget. I have separate calendars for my different kinds of events (birthdays, fitness training, etc.) The plethora of different views allows me to see my schedule in any way I might (or might never) want.

I hate Google Calendar. And any kind of calendar/schedule-maker that is easy to use. If it's easy to use, people will use it, and with calendars and schedule-makers, that just won't do.

The Face of Boredom

When you have a schedule, you subtly believe you know what is going to happen during your day. You set the events of your day and you move from one appointment to the next, one task to the next, and one pre-planned moment to the next. It's true that society could hardly function without schedules, but it's just a cultural symptom of our obsession with productivity and efficiency.

This is bad for two reasons: First, because your day is "planned", nothing new or exciting can happen. You know the sequence of events (in fact, you have determined most of them). You become the ultimate master of your own destiny and therefore, there are no surprises.

Second reason: how mind-numbingly boring is that? The chief problem afflicting our culture today is not poverty, hunger, or filthy interstate rest stops... it's boredom. When we use a schedule to line up every minute detail of their days, weeks, years, and lives, we perpetuate this heinous evil and rob ourselves of engaging stimulation.

Maybe each day feels the same because they ARE the same.
"Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today."

For most people with schedules, each day feels exactly the same. It's like you know what's going to happen tomorrow. In corporate America, a select few people have truly exciting jobs, but for the rest of us, it can be a drudge. If you're expecting  the same unexciting day as yesterday, what are you looking forward to? Tomorrow will come and go, and you might ask yourself why do you really care?

Maybe we like schedules to feel in control of our lives. In an effort to be certain of as many things as possible, we plan our lives as a sequence of calender events and appointment invites. It's like giving someone a wrapped gift that you picked out. They may have no idea what's inside, but you do. For that reason, there is no surprise for you. Imagine always giving people wrapped gifts and never receiving one yourself.

What is this ultimately taking a toll on? Reliance on schedules negatively affects our ability to be spontaneous and adventurous that romantically invaluable skill. Imagination is the heart and soul of spontaneity. A common error is to believe that one must be erratic or impulsive to be spontaneous. However, it is imagination that gives the human soul the agility to be spontaneous. But there are few things that kill imagination, and consequently spontaneity, more than pre-planning your life and relying on rigid structures. Consequently, we become slaves to our schedules, both self-imposed and imposed from the outside.

Spontaneity also has a profound influence on one's courage. When an unexpected opportunity or challenge arrives, our ability to rise to it will be diminished, just because it does not fit into whatever we expected. Life is meant for action, and courage is what enables us to take appropriate action in any circumstance. Without courage, we miss out on life's rewards. Life is not always pre-canned or predetermined, and the most critical moments in life are usually those ones that are not planned or expected. Most of us don't need to chase after tanks on horseback or stop an alien invasion or escape from an island of genetically-engineer dinosaurs to satisfy our spirit of adventure and test our courage (if you do, you might be a fictional character), but that courage and adventurousness needs to be reclaimed.

Seize the moment. Push yourself to heroics. Do not settle for blindly following the established order, and do not be afraid to throw the schedule out and blaze your own trail!

I'll bet Indiana Jones didn't schedule this... and he turned out just fine.