On the freedom of being scheduled.
At Camp Quest, every minute the kids are awake is designated to some activities, transition, or down time.
Someone else cooks. You eat what they cook.
Someone else schedules. You go where they tell you, when they tell you.
Someone else assigns your cabin. You sleep where they tell you.
Which means: You are free to do the job in front of you. The primary job I had was playing with children, and being free not to worry about when the next thing was happening, or what I needed to do before it was amazing.
I don't think I've had that since I was a kid.
Adult camp is much less structured. Work is less structured (we need to get X done by Y date is about as close as it gets for me).
I realized that I am constantly worrying about what's next, about when to go to the next event, about what's going to get done and how.
I wonder if I can rework my life's activities to have that freedom, where the person who assigns the time and whens is, of course, me but me when I focus on it.
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Scheduling yourself is hard! I feel this sometimes though. Maybe the benefit is really just focus.
ReplyDeleteIs “freedom” definitely the word you’re looking for?
ReplyDeleteIt certainly feels freeing!
ReplyDeleteThis is a large part of the draw of Monastic life (at least for Benedictons and Franciscans — I don’t really know much about the other orders)
There’s a notion from cultural studies that there are thee cultural approaches to time, which also translate well into the personal.
Past Time: to know what will happen, look at the past. Things happen in steady cycles and patterns.
Present Time: to know what will happen, go with whatever makes sense at the time. Very loose, unscheduled.
Future Time: to know what will happen, make a plan and a schedule well in advance.
I’m very Past. When I have to operate in a Future space, having someone else do my planning is tremendously freeing, as long as I trust them basically at all.
I can see the allure of this! I certainly feel much better when I have a plan and just need to follow it. However, that feeling is agnostic to the activity. It's why so many folks are ok with just following orders.
ReplyDeleteThis! I'm not very good at structure, when left to my own devices. We sleep in a little later every day if I don't have somewhere to be at a certain time. It's why I have become a strict(ish) scheduler at friend camp. If you have a schedule, you can always deviate from it, but people don't tend to deviate ONTO a schedule. We would get to the end of the day and say, "Oh, we never made it to the beach today. Maybe tomorrow." But if someone says, "Hey, we're leaving for the beach at 10. Who wants to come?" people come, and are glad they went.
ReplyDeleteTony Lower-Basch I think it is: Freedom to do the thing I want to do. Freedom from responsibility along a variety of domains.
ReplyDeleteI essentially do this with a boatload of calendar events and phone alarms. My days work 1000% better when I just do whatever my phone tells me to do.
ReplyDeleteJosh Roby
ReplyDeleteIt’s like having a secretary/program manager as a personal assistant.
No really. Freedom from (insert responsibility here) is a big deal, and you can often pay a lot (or have a company pay a lot) to have people do it for you.