Food for Thought #7: Weekend Edition

Photo source: WGTE

Maybe I’ve been asking questions that are too tough lately. I wanted to provoke thoughtful answers, but I also want my readers to be happy and participate. So this week, I’m lightening things up a tad. I’ll put off asking the hard questions a while, even given the example of our previous administration.

Here’s this week’s menu:

Appetizer: When it comes to the weekend, do they usually measure up to your expectations?

Yes, because I try to set such low expectations. If I get a couple of things done around the house and have a couple of nice dinners with the family, I’m happy.

Soup: What good thing happened this week that you were not expecting?

When I wrote this question earlier this week, I didn’t think it would be such a stumper. I think I’m going to have to go with the Dixieland-ish performance at FRED. It was more fun than I expected, and we didn’t suck nearly as bad as I had feared. The audience seemed appreciative. Suna and I even were treated to some very good crockpot “bar-b-que.”

Salad: If one end of a scale is, “I like to have every second of my day planned and executed according to that plan” and the other end is “I like to take life as it comes, completely spontaneously,” where do you fit?

I’m somewhere in the middde. I like to have a plan, but I don’t panic if the plan falls apart. I also like to have some degree of spontaneity in my life. I would like to be able to wake up one Saturday morning and say, “Let’s go to Fredericksburg today and buy peaches”—then do it.

Entré: Do things just happen, or do we control what happens in our lives?

I tend to have an internal locus of control. I am more likely to believe I have some degree of control not only over what happens to me but, more specifically, how I react to it. This belief is at the core of my practice of focused intent and controlled folly. Still, there are things that happen that are beyond my ability to control, or sometimes even understand.

Dessert: What are your plans, if any, for the weekend.

Suna and I are planning to have a nice birthday dinner. This weekend falls between our birthdays. I also hope to get a shade garden planted in front of the fence on the right side of the house. Then there is a benefit for a musician friend of ours who had all of his equipment stolen from his truck.