Friday 5 October 2007

Stuck in neutral



How does one plan for the future when the present is rather spontaneous and undecided? Do we just make provisional plans that are open to be moved around? Or do we make a definite plan, with definite dates, and work other stuff around it?

Coming back to France, I had a definite plan around which everything else had to fit. My summer job fitted around the end of university and my departure. My sketchy idea of what I want to do with the rest of my life is trying to decide whether it's on the backburner or whether it's going to take prominence in my thoughts over the coming weeks. As for my immediate future here in Toulon, that is just as sketchy as 'what happens after'.

So what do I do about my impending decision making? I completely avoid all thoughts. Now I have done some research into the "next stage", but that came to a grinding halt when frustration associated with the "current process" took over all thoughts and actions. I'm not usually a person who gets really panicked and worked up easily, but since I've been in France my calm demeanour seems to have regressed. Search me for the answer to that one (answers on a postcard, please).

And now I suppose I'm in a rut, I can't make myself continue research into the distant future because my knowledge of the near future is so blurred. And I can't make myself clear up the not-too-distant future because frustration gets in my way in trying to do so.

Swings... roundabouts... see-saws... if only I'd taken note of other people's stories of frustration when it comes to paperwork, I might not be so negative and appreciate it for the unique element of French culture that it is. Or maybe I could just apologise for the overall general simplicity of paperwork chez moi.

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