“Serving overseas as a small-town boy from America is intense, stressful and humorous! Enjoy a light-hearted story with me from our last 20 years overseas!”
— Matt
Overplanning life
One day my college roommate asked me, “Do you record the day and time you plan to clip your fingernails this week?” Since my youth, I loved planning out my week in a day timer. It gave me a sense of security (probably false) that I knew how my week would go. However, I probably took it too far. In college at Purdue University, my Central American roommate would marvel at me filling out every detail of my week’s tasks, classes, and appointments. He had a good sense of humor, and I didn’t catch his drift enough to change a bit in my life habits.
When I moved overseas, I quickly learned that I needed to keep planning and preparing each week, but to hold on to life more loosely. Lesser developed places are just more unpredictable as many of the systems and structures of daily life are more glitchy. I experienced planning mishaps and realized that I had to discard my belief that I had more control over life somehow if I wrote it down in my day timer – a slow and clumsy process. I also learned to let the locals “organize” things, which allowed the weight to be on their shoulders.
I now watch newly arrived Americans struggle with the unpredictable-ness of life overseas. Some make the switch while others do not and leave. When we have short-term teams come over to help us, I print out an hourly schedule of their time. I ask the group, “Who are the planners on the team?” I do not give a schedule to those who raised their hands as planners and tell the rest that the schedule will be out of date in a few hours or a few days, but to carry it around if it makes you feel good.
The Covid-19 pandemic has put the world on a more level playing field. We Americans have incredible testing and vaccinating processes. However, the undeveloped world is better equipped “mentally” to handle misadventure and the unpredictable as they live it on a regular basis.
I do not schedule fingernail clipping to this day, but I still prefer to fill in my day timer each week with all the details and then just scratch out changes as they happen each hour or day.
Something similar ever happen to you? Contact me and let me hear your story!
mattsmishaps@gmail.com Matt’s Mishaps, PO BOX 114, Grabill, IN 46741
