Editor’s Note: Is anything ailing, torturing, or nagging at you? Are you beset by existential worries? Every Tuesday, James Parker tackles readers’ questions. Tell him about your lifelong or in-the-moment problems at [email protected].
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Dear James,
I have one of those eternal questions, the kind that is difficult to answer no matter how much you ruminate on it: How exactly is one supposed to work hard enough to put food on the table and also not work so hard as to abhor your day-to-day existence?
What I’m getting at is, I used to play the banjo. I used to be pretty good, too: I’d go down to the local bar every month or so, sit around with the others, and make some real music for hours at a time. The average passerby might not have paid to hear it (the tip jar, labeled TIPS in huge block letters, was always conspicuously empty). But we always had a good crowd in the place— sometimes they’d even sing along—and I have only fond memories of the whole thing.
But alas, I’m a student, and I have a couple of licensing exams coming up that I can’t afford to fail. Of course, if I had my ducks in a row I could contrive to both study for my licensing exams and play my banjo. People do harder things. But I don’t have my ducks in a row, so it’s one or the other.
Is there a light at the end of the tunnel? Does careerism require the soul in exchange for success? Maybe I just need to get those ducks in a row.
Dear Reader,
Dude (if I may), play your banjo. Nothing is more important than playing your banjo. There are plenty of hours in the day. Get your ducks in a row and then behead the ducks.
Play your banjo!
James
Dear James,
I recently got into a university, but it’s not the one I had hoped for. I qualified for a program in one of its departments, but it’s not the one I had hoped for. I was rejected by every other university I applied to—which I also hadn’t hoped for.
In the past, I’ve failed countless times, and not only was I able to jump back up, but I was also able to tell myself, This failure was necessary. But I can’t seem to do it this time—maybe because this is my life and future we’re talking about, and one wrong move feels like it will affect all the rest. (It seems different from failing in a relationship, where one wrong man won’t necessarily spoil my experience with the rest.)
Perhaps it’s easier to accept anticipated failure. Who anticipates failure? Well, I do, when I know I haven’t planned well enough. But in this case I did plan: I worked hard, or so I thought. I don’t understand where it all went wrong.
Making things worse: I don’t have a backup. I haven’t been flexible; I haven’t been open to other ideas. Throughout high school, I felt the need to talk about one plan and one plan only. I worried that if I talked about anything else, it might convey that I lacked confidence in myself, and might give others the privilege of belittling me.
Now I’m stuck in uncharted territory. And it’s my fault. Do you see a way out?
Dear Reader,
Well, it’s definitely your fault, insofar as we are all responsible for the way we think, and you have thought yourself into a real brain trap here—a real spiked chamber of mental confinement. I feel for you. How do you know you’re in a brain trap? There’s no room. You go in tiny circles, bumping the walls. Language begins to perish: The same words recur, deadeningly.
You have to get out!
So let’s go, Houdini. Let’s spring ourselves from this airless box. This concept of “failure” with which you are belaboring yourself—you might want to start by having a good look at that. From somewhere you have inherited a punishing set of standards, and they are not working for you. I’m trying to restrain myself from typing “Failure is a part of life,” but it really is. It’s built in. Since we were lumps of protein quaking, Jell-O-like, on the primeval shore, we’ve been failing steadily, over and over. I failed yesterday, and a couple of times in the night. No Plan B? Welcome to the human race.
An exercise for you: Visualize failure. Visualize it maybe as a hovering black tumor or a bearded, bloodsucking marsupial—or as somebody’s face, telling you that you’ve failed. And then visualize zapping this face/tumor/marsupial with golden phasers, thought torpedoes, celestial disintegrators, the full arsenal of your mega-mind. Zap it until it’s gone. Destroy failure!
I don’t want to discount external pressure here. Jobs are real; college degrees are real; money is real. But they’re not that real. And I’ll tell you what isn’t real at all: the expectations of the people around you. Don’t let ’em drive you crazy.
Last thing: If you’re in uncharted territory, you’re not stuck. You’re free.
Glowing in absurdity’s sunrise,
James
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