Mama Tse Tung's Five Year Plan

Today I read an article on Grist that speculated on the ways our democratic society may actually be at a disadvantage in dealing with climate change when compared with the efficiency of China’s autocratic system. It got me thinking about the efficiency you gain when you can just do something yourself instead of having to get the Republicans or your 2 year old on board first. And I started thinking about the Five Year Plan. Although some people make fun of China’s fondness for the Five Year Plan, and there is something silly about it on the surface, it seems to me that maybe there’s something to it. Maybe that’s due to the fact that I just went back to work, and a major project relates to a strategic planning document that is required to be updated – you guessed it – every five years. In any case, I decide to see how it might work for my own life.


To get a sense for how much change I should plan for, I decided to look back at my life five years ago. I was working full time as a planner, had season tickets to the opera and the ballet, had recently tested for my orange belt in kung fu, and was a couple months shy of submitting my dossier to adopt a healthy infant from China (a process I expected to complete that year). I had no consumer debt and had built up a healthy little savings account earmarked for the adoption.

Since then, I adopted a 3 year old with special needs from China, after a process that lasted years longer than expected, went down to part time work, had a baby, stayed home for two years, went deeply into debt despite giving up all forms of entertainment outside the home before finally returning to work full time as a technical writer, with one child in first grade and a full time nanny taking care of my toddler.

No wonder China never plans in increments longer than five years. It really does make that old saw "kids-grow-up-fast-so-enjoy-them-now" sound a little less trite. In the last five years, I’ve lived at least three lifetimes, each of which I thought would never end. Can I possibly conceive of my life five years from now? Maybe a five year plan is too much.  Is it too late make a new year’s resolution?