But, life is messy and all that one can reasonably do (as far as I know), is prepare for the hard times and enjoy the good times.

Hmm. When I hit reply, this quote was automatically filled in in the comment. I shall leave it that way. We can call it serendipity.

I would just call you a control freak, and I would say that you are in good company here. I always want to know the exact status of where things are, where they are going; sometimes this causes me to rush ahead because I don't like things that are nebulous or undefined. I understand that in life, many things gradually develop, and so wanting to immediately fit anything into a box (what am I doing? where am I going? how is the status of this friendship/relationship? am I mad at this person? - translating into trigger-quick "I am done with this person" responses sometimes) is sometimes disadvantageous. I work on tempering it.

I like definitions. I like metrics. I like being able to look at numbers and knowing I need to meet them and if I want to excel, I simply need to beat the numbers. Sadly - and excitingly - life is rarely so explicitly defined.