What happens when you don't have a plan

So I am here in our room, alone. I can't stand the mess. I want to clean up but I don't know where to start or how to. The room is full already -- with refrigerator, two double decks, a folding mattress lying on the floor, a closet, one more closet and still one more closet, a long table, a drafting table, and a small table, a platform and too many things under the beds. I want to start from zero -- without these things. I want them out first.

So that's what happens when you  don't plan ahead, when you just put things inside without knowing how to arrange things in place -- a messy, hard-to-clean-up room.

Same thing goes with relationships. If you get into it without planning ahead, it's like getting yourself in a quicksand -- once you get inside, you sink slowly and it's hard to get yourself out. 

Because there wasn't any plan in the first place, you just start to put things into the relationship -- surprises, dates, gifts, more surprises and then more surprises. Then it starts to build up. Like a messy room, there's just too much inside. Yet you keep putting in things, thinking it would save the relationship. You 'd put in more dates, to facilitate good communication. More gifts, to show your appreciation. And a lot more surprises, to keep things alive and... well, surprising!

So you think you're saving the relationship that way? You might as well think again.

The more of those "things" you put into, the more you suffocate your relationship. Until it can't take anymore. And it blasts!

Then one day, you find yourself standing there thinking of cleaning it all up, doing it all over again. But it's impossible to take the things out -- the same things you yourself put in.

So that's what happens when you  don't plan ahead, when you just put things inside without knowing how to arrange things in place -- the realization that you could have better.

Try "other things" -- those that doesn't take up too much space in a room, like thinking.


Same goes with a planning a city. Look what we have here:

1. We bow down to these devastating disasters - fire, earthquake, typhoon.

Picture from http://filipinolifeinpictures.wordpress.com/2008/07/23/manila-fire-and-the-aftermath/

2. We spend a lot of time on the road, we get stuck in traffic.

Picture from http://www.justanotherpixel.net/2010/06/we-need-car.html

3. And this skyline.

Picture from http://egagah.blogspot.com/2011/05/welcome-to-other-side-of-philippines.html

Someday, I will do something to arrange things in this city. Someday, I will have a plan for this city. I know I can't just take things out and I can't start from zero. That's the challenge I'm willing to accept.

But for now, I'll settle for this small space -- our messy, hard-to-clean-up room.