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Last night I bought more airplane tickets, which means I’ve booked three trips in the last two months — the first of which was booked WHILE I was on another trip. And now that these are booked, I’ll turn my attention to an overseas trip next summer. Yes, my savings account hates me. No, I don’t have enough paid time off, which means my savings account will really start hating me soon.

But when I began overhauling my life a year ago, I swore that one of the changes would include more traveling. When I left my job, they paid me two months’ worth of vacation time. That’s two months during which I could have seen more of the world while still receiving a paycheck. In my [censored] years of life, I’ve only seen 19 of the 50 United States. I’ve never left North America. A year ago, I promised myself that I would get off the continent by 2012, and by god, I’m going to do it.

The problem is, I’m not that great of a planner, because I hate making decisions. And that’s funny, because my whole life I’ve pushed toward leadership roles — president of multiple high school clubs, editor of a newspaper, etc. (Let me tell you, getting 15 broke college students to and from New Orleans less than two months after 9/11 was quite exhausting.) There are so many options and decisions, and everything sounds good to me. Honestly, everything in the world fascinates me and I’m never bored. If others have set plans, that’s fine, but how on earth am I supposed to decide among a multitude of options?

As a result, I go into vacations with a mostly open schedule. Usually there are a few things I really want to see, and I often have to work around family schedules. I do try to find interesting things to do, just so that I can get a full experience, but that’s not a requirement. For instance, in June I spent six days in Alaska. I ran a marathon but just played the other five days by ear — and had a fabulous time with great friends. I had no idea the mountains would be so steep and so green, and that I could just marvel at them while out on a walk. I couldn’t have planned ahead of time to find a leaf bigger than my head, but that was one of the funnier pictures I’ve ever taken.

You can’t plan those things. And you shouldn’t. It’s often better to just let life happen, and to revel in it.

I sometimes drive people nuts with my indecisiveness and my struggles to actually plan. But when it comes to vacations, there may be proof that I’ve got the best method. I stumbled across this blog post about whether vacations make people happy, or if the planning is the real trick. It linked to a couple different studies showing that people were happier in the days leading up to vacations, when they were planning and full of anticipation of grandeur. When they returned home, everything felt anti-climactic.

The thing is, I don’t experience that. Granted, I usually want to remain in the tropical paradise or snow-capped mountains rather than go back to everyday life of working and bill-paying and house cleaning. But I return with a feeling of having LIVED. I’ve seen another bit of this fascinating world. Usually there are mellow days in my vacations — and that’s fine, because relaxing is also important.

So, the next time someone says, “Will you just decide already?!” I’m going to feel OK when I suggest that they either make the decision or accept the fact that I’m perfectly happy to just watch life unfold.

Or I’ll ask them to help plan my next adventure. That one involves going to the United Kingdom next May/June, and I have a feeling that will require more decisions than my trip I just booked to Houston. Any takers?