Photo credit: Norman Jean Roy, Details Magazine
"I don’t have this huge, overarching plan. I don’t know what I’m gonna wake up and feel like doing tomorrow, let alone five years down the line. I think that’s enabled me to get to where I am. I certainly go after what I want. But I just have detached amusement about a lot of it. Because it’s silly. This job is ridiculous."
- Jon Hamm
Andy wrote a post the other day on the pressure to have a plan and his preference for trying not to have too much of one. Earlier in the week I read a few Proverbs that had to deal with making plans. Then I read the article on Jon Hamm in the latest issue of Details, where he said the above.
As I considered all of this, I remembered a time in my life when I didn't have too much of a plan.
It was the day I graduated from high school. As family and friends passed through my graduation party, I remember them all asking me something to the effect of, "So Paul, where are you going to go to college?" Or, "What are you planning on studying?"
I can also perfectly recall the looks on their faces when I told them I didn't know—that I didn't really have any plans at that point except to take a scholarship offer from one the schools that was recruiting me for baseball. Other than that, I didn't know what I was going to do. I just wanted to play baseball somewhere.
To me, it felt freeing and fantastic. I knew that no matter where I ended up, I would be doing what I loved. To them it sounded horrifying (at least judging by the looks on their faces). They couldn't imagine my not knowing where I would be going to school and what I would be majoring in.
Of course all of that changed the day I stepped on to campus and I had to begin thinking about what I wanted my major to be and with that, what kind of job I wanted when I would be done with school. There was no option for not having a plan. I had to pick a plan and attend the appropriate classes.
For the next three years I changed my plan three times. It never felt quite right. And in that time I lost my enthusiasm for playing baseball. All of this caused me to pause for a semester and figure out what I was good at and what I liked doing. I realized that I liked applying my creativity to problem solving and I liked coming up with ideas that inspired people. So, I thought advertising would be a good fit.
Being forced into a linear way of thinking through my engineering, math and science classes the previous three years, I deducted that advertising was a function of marketing, which was a function of business and because of that, I needed to get a business degree with an emphasis in marketing.
I was back to not having much of a plan. I didn't know how I was going to get into advertising or what I was going to do to once I did, or God forbid, if I didn't. All I knew was that I was going to transfer schools and learn about marketing and advertising so that I could do it. It was fantastic and freeing. And with this feeling, I knew somehow that I was headed in the right direction.
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