“Life management” is almost as exciting a word, to me, as “calculus”. When I think of it, of my life and what is required to manage it, a part of me wants to rebel. To let everything go and just do as I please, for whatever whimsical reason, in as fun a fashion as possible. Another part of me remains Stoic, determined to be a good little manager and make something of my time here. And still another part of me asks the question, “Does life management have to be hard?” Answer: it depends.
For example, if I were to reduce “life management” to its most simplistic form, I would say it is concerned mostly with the idea of destination and course, and the modification of the two. It is constantly asking the questions, “Am I going to the right place?” and “Am I taking the right path to get there?” It is a never-ending consideration of place and path, of destination and current course—until we arrive at death, of course.
That’s the most basic life management strategy. The most complex is painstaking and rigorous and adopted mostly by those with a tinge of mania. Thus, it is not for me and I don’t really know what it entails—apart from a lot of brain sweat and moderately high blood pressure.
See, like most things in life, when I comes to life management I lean towards the lightweight and the simple: every year or so, I seriously evaluate where I’ve been, where I am, and where I’m heading. The rest of the time? I make rapid adjustments, conduct tiny experiments, and try to always ask interesting and/or difficult questions of myself, others and the world.
Swell & Cut 