My Present.

For work I recently had to take a personality assessment that divulged my top 5 personality strengths. While a few of them came as no great surprise (Hello... EMPATHY anyone?), I was intrigued to learn about a few new little quirks that I have never been able to put a label of sorts on. The quiz revealed that I had strong FUTURISTIC tendencies. Now that's a new one.

In context, Futuristic went on to describe someone as:

"Pondering what you can upgrade, enhance, or perfect motivates you to excel at higher levels than you have in the past. You routinely imagine what you can do better in the coming weeks, months, years or even decades. You envision in vivid detail the things you need to enhance and perfect. These could include your environment, yourself, another person, a system, a project, a product or a job. Your imagination ordinarily pulls you into the future even as you work on current assignments."

Sounds great for someone who fancies herself as a creative designer. I chewed on this newfound description of myself for a few days, even wearing it as a badge of sorts, as it was discussed at our strategy retreat last week. Afterall, I was the only one on our team rocking the Futuristic label. The definition kept rolling around in my head over the last week, to the point of annoyance. Like some bad 80's song you can't get out of your head. Why? How did this go from being cool to this unexplained icky feeling I had every time I thought of the concept.

Fast forward to Wednesday night. I was uploading some new photos to Flickr which I had not done in ages. I took a quick minute to review some of the images I posted over a year ago. Pictures at a playground in South Haven. She didn't even look like the girl I had just put to bed. She was cherubic and clumsy. It was almost as if I was looking at someone else's family photos. I couldn't remember what had brought us to South Haven that day, or what we did before or after those pictures were taken. What did she sound like... was she even talking yet? And that saddened me a great deal. As cliche as it sounds, I went to bed wondering that night- where had the time gone? Have I been asleep? Have I not been paying attention?

And then the proverbial lightbulb came on. "Your imagination ordinarily pulls you into the future even as you work on current assignments."

I realized then that my newly-discovered character "strength" is actually my Achilles' Heel in life. My insatiable tendencies to plan the consummate future is robbing me of a perfectly imperfect present.

My weekends are typically heirmarked for a catch-up that never seems to happen. The amount of time spent planning to maximize the weekend, desperately trying to find the time to fit it all in is enough to drive any sane person mad. The endless lists, the filled-in Franklin pages, the volumes of archived magazine tears, the overloaded inspiration boards... all evidence that my pursuit of all things splendid has gotten downright ugly.

Another little gem this personality assessment brought to light.... I am an INPUT junkie, Futuristic's evil twin. That's right... books, magazines, blogs, DIY shows... all my drugs of choice. And all feed my addiction to the future. More articles suggest more ideas, which become more to do's, to makes and to buy's. Which then all need to be planned for. A vicious cycle indeed.

Its high time I use my propensity to envision in vivid detail the things I need to enhance and perfect to do some good in my life. It's late though, and I need to get up early tomorrow morning. I have a full weekend planned...

of living in the moment.