Just a handful of weeks before I left for the Peace Corps, my mom helped me move everything out of my Philadelphia apartment. We made it a two-day trip, the middle of which was a hotel in a random Virginia freeway-town. The girl at the front desk was about my age, with dirty blond hair and bright eyes. Or maybe a little younger, and to be clear, only the eyes themselves were bright. The skin around them looked tired.
When mom asked her where we should park the truck, she walked outside with us to point out the best place. On the way, mom explained that I was moving home because I was about to leave the country to serve in the Peace Corps.
I don't think the girl said anything at first, but I'll never forget what she said a minute later, out of the blue, while my mom was moving the truck:
"You're doing what most people can only dream about doing."
And then she left — back into the hotel, maybe for the rest of her life.
Oh, how I wanted to take her with me just then.
And now I'm here, and ironically, practically everyone I meet would trade practically everything for a life like hers. Don't get me wrong — I appreciate modern civilization. There's fun in all this possibility. But it leaves too much room for aspiration. With all these choices, you assume there must be a better way to live your life. Which can make it impossible to appreciate the good in what you already have … to consider that it might actually be good enough. That a more ignorant version of you would be satisfied.
Sure, some people really do have it bad. Hundreds of millions of them do. And it's okay for them to look upward. But the top few billion of us could stand to have a slightly less infinite set of opportunities. (By the way, I am in no way an exception. In fact, I'm worst-of-breed, because I voluntarily left a good American lifestyle to come over here and work for pennies … I'm so overwhelmed by choice that I can't even tell which ones are improvements! If I had any sense, of course, I would have simply married the girl at the hotel, moved to California, and called it quits.)
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
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3 comments:
Can I teach Richard how to use this? Let's time him... It is Saturday, Nov. 1 at 7pm and I'm walking him through this on the phone.
Wish me luck!
Mary Burkwit
Why do most people only dream about it? Because they don't have the motivation and vision to explore themselves, finding out who they CAN be.
For those people, if they can read, there are born writers and teachers like yourself.
People like you have the juevos to carry on where others would fail.
Most would say there are too many choices on the grocery store shelves in the USA. Your choices are within the hemispheres. Enjoy the ride till it wears you out, then much later take time to compose an expression of what you've discovered for others to read about.
When the going get tough, sit still for a moment and recall the wonderful snippets of life you've experienced, which others never will.
Thanks for ego puff. I guess I just think that the part of my life where I wear out and start reflecting on what I've done sounds pretty sweet, and I'm impatient with all the living I have to do first to get there. Hard to keep myself in (and enjoy) the moment.
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