Believe In Your Fig Tree
Revisiting an internal note on finding life's work.
I spent the last year wandering (both the world and vocations), and many friends asked how I worked through what I want out of life. I usually start by saying that anything worth listening to lies inward, and everything we do is another opportunity to listen to ourselves. Then I inevitably rant about Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar.
When frequently referenced in pop culture, it’s often reduced to a daydream Esther has while bored at a dinner:
"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet." - Plath, The Bell Jar
The message seems simple: Choose something and do it. Hesitation leads to lost opportunities. Plath ends the chapter with Esther waking up at the dinner with:
"Oh, I realized I was just hungry"
It's human nature to try and find meaning out of every fork in the road, every point when we're faced with making a decision. When we read books and watch movies, these are the moments we tunnel in on. Who doesn't want to live in a movie! So the act of deciding brings pressure, grief, and anxiety.
Whatever the decision, it's only hard because we choose to make much of it. Don't.
Rarely is any single decision alone of serious consequence, and our path isn't made of any single decision. Our path is about acting consistently, a byproduct of a million decisions, often made unconsciously. When we overemphasize a moment in time, it's usually because we're vulnerable and scared.
Rather, take a look at each of these figs and imagine making the most of any of the situations presented. Making choices becomes difficult and daunting because we often make them defensively, trying to avoid pain. We rarely realize this leads to weak decisions. If you're going to dream, dream of how well things can be, not of how bad they can get.
The path that’s easiest to dream highly and often of will be the easiest to make the most of. If you’re wrong, pick the next and do it quickly!
I encourage you to see all of your options and your contention with them as an opportunity to find yourself. God knows I’ve struggled more than most to do so. Now that I see my purpose and spend my days sustaining the cathedrals around me, I kick myself for time wasted staring at the tree not reaching. Mindset from scarcity to plenty might be everything.
I imagine most of you will find yourself in such a position. Maybe some in the exact transition of moving back to building for the physical world, and realize it was fear holding you back. My favorite childhood memories were from building robots, model bridges, chem lab, and spending time on my dad’s construction sites. The fig was always there, I could have kept reaching for it. Pick a fig, and if you don’t like it, chuck it! Trust your tree to keep bearing fruit.