Chapter 10: Plan A

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The significant problems we face cannot

be solved at the same level of thinking

we used when we created them.

~ Albert Einstein 

*

So what’s Plan A?

Plan A is my label for everything we learn as children about life and how to live it.

We each have a Plan A. 

And we each learn it in the same place and in the same way.

The place is our family, and the way is unconsciously.

Nobody sits us down at the kitchen table and says, “Listen up, kid, here’s how you do Life.”  They just do Life themselves, and we watch and listen and soak it all up like little sponges. 

Which explains why our Plan A tends to look so much like that of our family members.

And it works for a while.

Especially while we’re still living in the family.

We’re all following the same unwritten rule book.

But Plan A always breaks down.

This happens when we move beyond the family into the larger world, filled with new people and new challenges.

And we discover that what worked at home doesn’t always work out there.

At which point we have, at least in theory, a choice.

We can tell ourselves, “Oh, I guess I need a Plan B.”

Or we can tell ourselves, “I must be doing something wrong.  I better work harder at Plan A.”

Guess which we choose?

Right. Plan A. 

Always Plan A.

Two reasons for this.  First, we may not even know there’s such a thing as Plan B.  We think Plan A is just normal. Why would anyone do Life in any other way?

Second, even when we begin to suspect there are other options, change is scary. 

So we cling to Plan A because it’s familiar.  It may not work great, but it’s easy. We can do it in our sleep.

In fact Plan A is itself a kind of sleeping.

And we usually keep following it until symptoms wake us up. 

Symptoms like anxiety, depression, loneliness, addictions, bad relationships ad problems with parenting.

Those symptoms are what drive us into therapy.

Seeking, whether we realize it not, a healthier Plan B.