Musings About Planning and Travel

My pal and career coach Mark Warren taught me the importance of energy management more than time management.  Unlike criminals who have "malice aforethought," spontaneous travelers like me have "nary aforethought." I did hardly any research on train travel yet blissfully plopped down my credit card to the tune of 670$ and bought the Amtrak 30 day rail pass. I did so not to save money but to save energy.

Here's why.

1. Pragmatism. Given my mother's precarious health I wasn't sure we'd ever make it to Florida. I took her to the ER in Bellingham 4xs in the last 6 weeks. Rather than risk making travel and housing reservations that might need to be cancelled, I chose not to plan anything until our plane hit the tarmac.

2.  Exigency. Once we landed it was only a matter of hours before we were back in the ER, this time in Delray Beach. Our first 3 days in Florida were spent in a very nice hospital. I've heard of medical tourism but I don't see tourists planning vacations to visit ERs any time soon.

3.  Psychology There is something energizing about spontaneity. Economic neurologists who study the irrational choices consumers make recognize that there are other factors behind our spending habits beside price, quality, and convenience.  There was for me the nebulous but very real "can I make a hasty decision and live with the consequences?" factor. Making travel plans entails 10,000 decisions and having just spent the last two months as care giver to my mom, and the 6 years prior to that as caregiver to my wife, I reached a point of decision overload. The solution? Buy the damn train ticket and rid myself of the emotionally draining waffling, weighing options, reading reviews, and fretting about making the best decision.  In my case making a potentially bad decision was better than making a well thought out decision.

I've now spent one full day in New York (report coming soon) and so far so good! My depleted energy got a boost from cousin Jan and the energy drain of weighing 10,000 travel decisions got plugged. My resources are slowly coming back. Isn't this is what re-creation is all about? Even God rested on the seventh day.