Tales From the Caribbean: The Art of Obsessive Planning

Always plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.

Richard Cushing

It’s amusing to me to see how far I’ve gotten with planning my life. See, I’m the kind of person to create intricate to-do lists and timetables as a pastime. Back home in Haiti, my mother was the victim of my craving for schedules. I would drag her to my room, put on my invisible business suit, and present my carefully crafted schedule for the things I would complete during the week. Of course, she’d make fun of me, complaining that she knew I would never follow suit with my plans– which is debatable– but I took pride in my ability to create an indefinite future. 

When the pandemic and my country’s political situation grew dangerous, as most students experienced, we went into lockdown. I had to transfer out of my brick-and-mortar education and enter the realm of remote learning. You would think that my parents, severe and strict toward education, would take full responsibility for finding an alternative school for their children (me and my younger sibling). One equivalent to the private Christian education we experienced growing up at that. 

But no. 

I learned that once you reach a certain age in maturity, parents don’t have the time nor the patience to relive their sweet early parenthood moments of tediously scouring the internet for the ideal school to accommodate their growing kids. Maybe it’s just a Caribbean parent thing, but I was left to do the dirty work of switching educational institutions. 

Not that I minded, to be honest. I was, in fact, on cloud nine during the entire transfer process. I knew I was a fresh fish out of the 10th-grade river and entering the dreaded junior year, so I had to find the best school out there before I became a dead fish– and possibly, quite literally, a dropout. 

That’s when the Holy Spirit of Planning possessed my soul. I worked, slaved, and labored away at my computer keyboard, never stopping until I found the perfect school. And, sure enough, she appeared to me like a traveling gypsy. I found a selective online private academy tailored to my needs for learning, and I felt like I had discovered my kindred spirit. 

When applying to this exclusive private online academy, I was the one who contacted my previous high school for my academic records, assembled my application, pre-planned my course schedule, and even applied for the academy’s gifted program (on a planned whim, of course). My parents signed the legal documents without batting an eye, trusting my judgment, and I submitted my file for review. 

All this is to say, don’t be afraid to take charge of your education and life. After getting accepted into this academy, it opened many doors and opportunities, which led me to Denison University. Although my college application process was a different hero’s journey, I learned a lot from my previous experiences with incessant planning during my transfer process. 

Lastly, I want to give a massive shout-out to my parents for putting up with my planning infatuation and a big thank-you for allowing me to apply my skills to a real-life scenario with high stakes. After all, it’s never too late to become an obsessive planning maniac like me. 

Make your dreams come true, folks, and start scribbling out those schedules!

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