Dreaming

I love this quote from Ms. Steinem. She articulated how I often find myself making decisions and living my life.

This weekend, Jordan and I reminisced about the weekend (five years ago) we contemplated the possibility of leaving Seattle and moving to Durham. We were in Durham for just a short weekend, to celebrate my Dad's 80th! The idea of moving back to my home town really hadn't been in our existing plans. But, a few conversations started that weekend and Jordan and I began to think...maybe moving to Durham is exactly what we should do. And in that afternoon, Jordan and I allowed ourselves to dream of that as a new future for us. 

Once we envisioned the possibilities, we could choose to follow them to reality. I remember Jordan and I were both sort of shocked that this idea/possibility was coming up. Just a year earlier, when a cousin asked if we were ever "moving back", I had emphatically said..."Oh no, we love it too much in the Seattle area." --That was true. And it was still true on that day when we began to think about "moving back". As we talked, Jordan and I realized that we both wanted to pursue the move back east. 

Later, we told Dad we would be moving to Durham. Side note:  My Dad and I do not approach decision making in the same way. He and I may come to the same conclusion/decision, but we definitely come at it from different angles. Dad had lots of questions like: "What about your job? How will you get a new job when you live out there?"

As an INFJ, I find those questions tedious. The decision had been made. There was no need to get caught up in and distracted by the details. What I wanted my Dad to do, at that moment, was to simply celebrate that we were going to move closer to him, but he wasn't able to accept that our moving back was "real". He seemed to think that questions needed to be asked and answered before we could come to the decision. 

But that isn't how it works for me. For me, the decision comes first and then the details can get sorted out. For me, the details are simply the logistics of implementing the pre-determined decision. 

I'm certainly not saying that this is how decisions and planning should work for everyone. For me, unanswered questions are simply that, "unanswered". Not every question needs an answer to move forward. In fact, often just the act of moving forward allows things to begin to fall into place naturally. At least that is how things have worked for me.

So, if you ask me...I say Dream First...then Plan.