“Show up and be there anyway. Because that’s what you do.”
– Rita Pierson
I think right off the bat, since childhood, we are primarily asked the question, “What do you want to do?”, and it always stumps us because there is never one true answer that we carry with ourselves all through our life. Some lucky ones do, but most don’t. And for those other lost souls like me, this excruciating external question becomes so exceedingly internally ingrained, that we start to ask, nay doubt, it within ourselves.
What do you want to do? What do you want to be? What SHOULD you be?
But as the internal search for the answers exhausts us, we start asking it out loud, not knowing how to solve the puzzle that has left us feeling unfinished. Maybe someone else out there would know. Maybe I will ask it before the world asks it to me. Maybe… So, we start asking our friends, teachers, shrinks, strangers, “Hey, if you just have one second to answer this life-altering question for me – what do you think I should be?”. And the answers sure do pour in. “How about an entrepreneur? A teacher? A scientist? A businesswoman? A housewife (yeah, right!)?” and so on.
But the problem is that these answers never seemed to answer the question, for me.
So, one day, I posed the elusive query to someone that knew me relatively better than everyone else, someone who has experienced a lot, someone who I thought would at least help me narrow it down, if not pinpoint the correct profession – my mother. So, there I was, sitting cross-legged on the bed, in checkered shorts and casual tee, with post-dinner dizziness and pre-question queasiness. And there she was, calmly going through the chores with that ever so slight sense of frustration on her face brought about by two aged but not-so-mature children, along with the unwaning warmth in her eyes, ever present. “Mom?”, I tried to gingerly test the waters, grab her attention and advice. “Mmm”, she said, not taking her eyes off of the careful folding and putting away of the clothes that she was doing. I wondered if she would ask me to pack it in and put it away too, all these stupid existential crisis questions from a mere late-twenties brat. I could just hear her high-pitched but condescending elderly catchphrase as she looked down upon me “Humare zamane mein yeh sab nai hota tha (Back in our days, we were never asked what we wanted to be!)”. I anyways braved through and asked her hesitantly, “What do you think I should do? What do you want me to be?”.
She paused what she was doing, put down the clothes and finally looked up at me. I held my breath for another venture that I should pursue to be thrown at me. Instead, she saw me squarely and said with all the grace, wisdom and care that only a mother could have, “I want you to be happy.”
“Just be happy, no matter what you do, no matter where you are, just be happy.” And that was it. She didn’t typecast me into something that I might not want to be, she didn’t shove her opinion down my throat, she didn’t look at the question the way others did. Because she understood what was more important.
So why don’t we as well? Why do we agonize after things that will bring us short-form joy but not long-term happiness? And even though we have seen that nothing is quite such an easy ride as we want it to be, even if it is your most favorite ride in all of the Disneyland. Nobody that I have known through my whole life has it easy. But if they are in the right space of mind and heart, they have told me that they love it. They might not like the everyday of what they do, but they love it. And that’s what helps it be a little more bearable, a little more bigger and a little more beautiful. It’s not the claim, it’s not the name, it’s not the fame. It’s the game, and the game itself. And you might still be stumped every once in a while, but you now know how to play the field, to show up at the crease again and again, to keep raking in the runs.
So, you won’t like them all, you may not know what to do and you certainly will always have to keep pushing no matter what the risks and rewards. It will get tougher but you will triumph…or maybe…or not. But you will show up and be there anyway. Because that’s what you do.
Because whatever you choose to do, first choose to be happy.
Loved it? Read Part Two here.
