At some point, when you’re a grown-up, you run out of plan.

When you’re a kid, you always know what you’re going to do next. Go to kindergarten, go to school, get out of school for summer vacation, go back to school. Elementary, junior high, high school, college, mission, college, marriage, kids, career.

Then what?

That’s what I mean by “run out of plan.” Now we’re all grown up, and raising our kids around us. Sometimes it still startles me that I’m the Dad now, that I’m the one (together with Mom) making the decisions. Now that we’ve checked all the little boxes, what do we do? The question is, what do we want to do? What do we want out of life?

Of course you guide yourself by your principles, and as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (a Mormon), my principles are clear. But those are just the framework. What do I want to do with them? What do I want to be when I grow up?

A few weeks back I sat down and made up what I called a “crystal ball.” It was a plan of when the kids start going to college, when they go on missions, when we sell this house and build our honeymoon cabin, and when Jess and I can start to serve missions. (Yes, senior couples in the Church can serve missions, and we’re looking forward to doing so. In nineteen years.) I also calculated what the costs might be.

Then this afternoon I sat down with a financial planner to begin fleshing out a plan to make it happen.

I don’t know if it can. But I also know that if I don’t make the effort, it won’t.

Wish me luck.