Last night my sister came over to my house, as we watched a movie. Now, I am not normally a girl who is not into Romantic Comedies at all.  Movies are one thing that my roommate and I will never see eye to eye on – she loves “RomComs”, I hate them. And it’s not that I’m cynic or anything. I really do believe that true love is out there. It’s just normally I can’t get past the awful writing. Holes in the plot, formulaic story structures…they feel like a corporate version of art. But…I lose myself. That is a conversation for another day.

Last night, my sister came over and we watched What Happens in Vegaswith Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher.

The premise of the movie was exactly what you think it should be: two attractive people meet in Vegas, get blitzed and then get hitched. It gets a little complicated when Jack (played by Kutcher), wins 3 million dollars at a slot machine right after consenting to annul the marriage with Joy (played by Diaz). Considering his new found wealth and their marital status, Joy decides she is entitled to half of the money. In a messy judge ruling, they have to spend 6 months together working out the “marriage” before they are allowed to separate and split the winnings. The rest is history – boy gets girl, boy looses girl, boy gets girl back. And they all learn something about themselves in the process. Basic obnoxious chick flick.

But the part that really caught me what this line:

 ”You are planning to plan.”

You see,  Joy is a character much like myself. She is a strong, independent woman with a professional career on Wall Street. (ok, so we are kind of similar…she’s a professional…I have no job…but go with me on this one).  She is constantly spending time trying to be everything. She is beautiful, chipper, the perfect girlfriend, and pushing for a promotion at her Wall Street job. Sound familiar? How about my entry on Dos Equis, and trying to be interesting?

A few times in the movie, a pivotal statement pointed out to her is “You are planning to plan,” showing her exactly how deep her need for control and perfection really go. Ouch.

So, here I sit, a day after watching this mediocre movie, and I cannot get this line out of my head. And while planning and control are things that I struggle with in general, it seems to be an awkward number considering everything that I have going on. It’s a little hard to plan when you don’t have a  job, and you don’t know where you are going to be living in three weeks.  And these are just the struggles with planning out the next several months.

Beyond months, I realize that I am up in the air for the next several years.  In being unemployed, and at a critical point in my career life, I realize that the next position that I undertake can have substantial impact. At the moment,  I have several things percolating, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I had a job offer on the table here before too long. There are several potential positions staring me right in the face: Marketing Analyst for a health care group, Admission Coordinator at a University, Admin at a major sport brand…each one of these options makes my head spin. Because they are different pieces, of different plans that don’t really fit together.

In realizing these planning fears and frustations, I come to the pinnacle when it comes to one important piece of  paper. My resume haunts me. And for one reason: A resume is a story teller. It shows potential employers where you have gone, what skills you have gained, and where you would like to go (hopefully, into their company).  But, if you are like me, your resume doesn’t one clear success story. Instead, I have what my dad so aptly stated “A smattering of experiences.” I have some HR work, I have sales, I have administrative….and when I think about it, I’m still under the heat of the question “what do you want to be when you grow up?”

By this point in time, I’d hoped that I would be grown up. And well into my career. But the reality is, there are people out there that look at my resume and say, “Oh, so you are still green. We have a great entry level job for you.”

And while I am humble enough to realize that I don’t know everything when it comes to the career word, I’m a little bit beyond answering phones and typing out emails for my boss. When I’m really honest with myself, I realize that my dad knows more about my hopes and dreams than I do. Because aside from telling me that I have a “smattering” of experience, he also reminds me that I have always known what I want to do.

“That’s easy.” He says, “You want to run the show. You always have, and now its just a matter of figuring out how.”

He’s totally right. I’m writer, that’s obvious. I’m a story teller, and a communicator. I’m visual. I’m into graphics and photography. I’m a coordinator. I’m a schmoozer. I have friends. I’m really great at networking. I’m smart and analytical. I’m structured. I’m inventive. I’m tenacious. I want to be the boss.

And I’m a planner. Like Joy, I can get paralyzed by planning to plan, and forgetting to let life happen. I get so stuck in the dissonance between who I am, and what my resume is not, that I forget to move forward. Instead I look at the possible job offers, where they are located, what apartments are near there, what the responsibilities of the position are, how much it is going to pay, and how that next entry on my resume is going to effect the next five years. It’s beyond exhausting, it’s ridiculous.

And althought the movie was stupid in my opinion, I know Joy found herself by getting lost. By letting go of the need to be “everything” she found what she was really looking for. I’m almost embarassed that I am finding so much deep truth out of such an awful movie. But, embarassing or not, there is truth in that. To realize that I know 40-somethings who still don’t know what they are doing, and have resumes that make them absolute failures on paper. But in real life they aren’t failures as corporate America might call them; they aren’t paralyzed like me either – they are just free. Free to make mistakes, and fail, and work at jobs that they love and don’t care if the world never thinks they are important.

I think I’d like to get there. When I’m honest, I’m already drafting a plan on how to get there in the back of my mind even as I am typing. Maybe the question now is just…

Is it ok to plan not to plan?