For years – probably since high school – I have categorized the worthwhile paths a person might take in one of two ways: either they would strive to change the world in a grand and impersonal fashion, by, say, curing a common affliction, or they would make it their goal to change lives personally, one at a time, face to face – like a teacher might. It was a handy distinction. People who weren’t all that keen on the luvy-duvy side of things could spend their whole lives in a lab if they wanted to, and I didn’t have to discount that, because their efforts change lives by the millions. People who didn’t really have much to offer science or literature but found themselves gifted with an overabundance of heart could do any kind of work they enjoyed, and could pour their hearts into meeting the less easily defined needs of those around them. Everybody fits; everybody’s got something they can do.
I gave up most of my big ideas when I learned to make this distinction. I figured I was the guy with the heart, so why should I waste time chasing after ridiculous ideas when I could be focusing on the people around me? We all know how people become the top actor, or the top writer, or the top photographer – they cut off every extraneous thing in their worlds in order to focus on their art. And for many of them, that means cutting off extraneous human relationships, extraneous hobbies, extraneous…hell, everything.
Well here I am. I teach now. Could I put more into my lessons, into my planning time, into researched teaching strategies? Absolutely. But could I invest more of myself into these kids? I’d be surprised if I could. If it weren’t stalkerish and weird, I’d show up at their sporting events and their birthday parties. I’d join their families. I’d wave goodbye to them at the airport. Just because I love all of these kids.
So why does this not feel even remotely like “enough”? Why do I still want to be the guy who does all of this, and creates a generation-defining work of art (or saves a few busloads of children, or revolutionizes international diplomacy, or…)? How is it that after spending so much of my life talking up the value of the everyman, I won’t let myself be happy as one?
I am as convinced that I have more to give as I am convinced that I have no idea what direction to take it. I’ve got a good mind and a few worthy talents and I’m standing around like an idiot, wasting the only time I’ve got. You want to know my deepest fear? What poetic lines will plague me till I die? I’ve got a few (they’re all worth asking about), but here’s the appropriate one for now. By Edgar Lee Masters, written from the perspective of a dead man:
“And toward the last, when I thought it over,
There by my window, growing clearer
About myself, as my pulse slowed down,
And looked at one of the mills I bought--
Which I didn't have the slightest need of,
As things turned out, and I never ran--
A fine machine, once brightly varnished,
And eager to do its work,
Now with its paint washed off--
I saw myself as a good machine
That Life had never used.”
I’m 23. I’m a damn kid, barely older than the high-schoolers I was teaching the other year. So why in God’s name am I so convinced that I have already irrevocably ruined my life, and fallen pitifully short of my own potential?
I never believed God would open up a whole life-plan before my eyes, but I always thought He’d lead me to what’s next. Honestly, the sense of aimlessness and meaninglessness, and my perception that I’ll never be able to change or develop into anything more than I am now, do more to dig at my faith than any tight philosophical argument.
And on top of all this, I get to hate myself for being a drama queen.
