I went to a very liberal high school where students were allowed to choose many of their own courses within the framework of the various departments. It was more like college than most high schools in the depth and breadth of the offerings; after freshman year there were dozens of offerings for, say, English, which brings me to my topic for today.
It was the summer before my junior year, and I was engaged in the engaging exercise of choosing my courses for the upcoming fall. I was on Martha's Vineyard, with my family, and in retrospect should have had some kind of a job, as I was too old to have so much time on my hands to devote to a task that should have occupied about 30 minutes, 45 tops.
It was one choice in particular that I agonized over. For at least a week I lay awake each night staring up at the ceiling and willing not God but some omniscient high school counselor/higher power (maybe a little like Frankie Avalon in Grease?) to send me the answer to my question. Which was: Romanticism and Revolution or Baroque Wit and Wisdom. I'm not kidding.
Both were taught by the best English teacher at the school, or rather the most intimidating; both struck me as ineffably intellectual. Romanticism or wit--it almost wasn't fair to offer such a choice to poetry-writing junior-grade satirists such as myself. I couldn't do it; I couldn't make up my mind.
I would think I had, wake up one morning having decided that Baroque Wit and Wisdom was the way to go, and then I'd take out the form, hold my pencil poised over the appropriate box and find myself paralyzed with indecision all over again.
I tried to get my mother to make the decision, a couple of friends, but shockingly, nobody else seemed to comprehend the magnitude. For some reason or reasons I had decided that my fate rested on this decision, my grade in English, my happiness junior year, my ability to get into college, and then, of course, the failure or success of the rest of my life. I sort of knew it was ridiculous, and I can't explain it even now, but I do remember the ferocity with which I debated myself, the actual pros and cons lists I wrote painstakingly in one of my gazillion notebooks.
Where am I going with this. I'm asking myself more than you, I suppose, and I think the answer--finally, an answer!--is this. I actually cannot remember which class I selected. I think it was Baroque Wit and Wisdom, but I wouldn't bet on it. And in spite of the intensity, the very real anxiety surrounding this seemingly trivial decision, it had--as far as I can see--zero effect on any of the aspects of my life I feared it would. It has become an anecdote about my inability to make decisions, but more, and more relevantly to me now, it is a cautionary tale.
Surrender your illusions of control. Quit thinking what you do, in the moment or on a larger scale, is necessarily so important or irrevocable. Make a choice. Make your choice work. Be open to what it might lead to. I'm well aware that you may already know all this. I needed a little refresher course.
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“Quit thinking what you do, in the moment or on a larger scale, is necessarily so important or irrevocable.”
Hard to believe I ever had another employer, but more than 20 years ago, I did. My previous job was a poor match primarily because it demanded secretarial skills beyond my scope. The bosses were kind but accustomed to a level of support which I was not providing, so I witnessed tightened lips, received red ink covered drafts back, and spent miserable months berating myself for not being good enough. In spite of this, I managed to stick it out (or they managed to stick me out) but it was an uneasy alliance.
Things changed though, late one Friday afternoon. There was a deadline, which may have related to one boss’s pending vacation in Abaco; the work required revisions to a 200 page Limited Partnership Agreement which I struggled to finish. Outside counsel needed multiple copies of the document and the Federal Express deadline was 5:00. With time to spare, I placed the two inch double-sided manuscript on the copy machine and hit start.
I don’t know how soon into it the machine started jamming, but it was ugly. Jam, clear the papers, confirm which pages made it through, reorder the originals, press start, watch a few pages go through, jam, clear, reorder the originals…I positioned partially finished documents into piles, trying to maintain order, but ultimately confusion reigned.
More than an hour into this, Abaco boss discovered me amidst a snowstorm of copy paper, feeding single pages through the copier, wiping my face and trying to hide the fact that I was crying. I don’t recall what I babbled to him about my predicament, but I’ll never forget this. He put a hand on each of my shoulders, looked straight into my swollen eyes and repeated several times, “No matter what, nothing is that important.”
Somehow those reports got out that day. But Terry Farrell, the executive who calmed a slightly incompetent clerical as she blubbered by the Xerox machine triggered the real triumph. His simple words that afternoon have resonated through the rest of my adulthood.
I take his phrase out for air regularly. Now I have a new one to add to it.
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