What Truly Matters
On standing still and letting joy be the accomplishment…
As a professional overthinker, my brain is in an endless yoyo of whys. Most times, it’s not even the whys of big things or elite problems like why our government wouldn’t do x to fix y but very simple and passive things. It is also almost reflective of my developing spirituality and relationship with God. After reading Victor Frankl’s Man in Search of Meaning in one of my most sorrowful moments, I realized that my faith is a necessary equipment for reflection on my life experiences and its meanings - even in hindsight or at least a solace that God knows better and more than I do where there were no explanations.
I received a physical copy of my master’s degree diploma from American University in the mail about two weeks ago. After a glance with a pinch of irritation and indifference, I tucked it up the top of my wardrobe at a corner far out of reach; the same place I tucked my glorious NYU degree and the notable awards it came with, the same place I tucked my CUNY – BCC degree nonchalantly. I knew that a better or perhaps more traditional step might have been taking pictures, posting about it, let's say on LinkedIn with an “I am excited to share…” rubbish speech that nobody reads to the end, or even framing it and hanging it on a wall but I couldn’t bring myself to do those things. I didn’t care, and it didn’t matter. But where my overthinking got the best of me, as always, was the worry about why I didn’t have the slightest care to parade some of my 3 degrees and 30-something awards accumulated in the past how many years, at least on the walls of my room even if I truly did them “just for myself.”
Since the pandemic, there has been an unsettling realization about the few things that genuinely matter in my life. Simultaneously, I fear that this consciousness has led me to a nonchalant attitude to many important milestones and relationships. I am now mostly quicker to be indifferent than to care. I worry that my inexistent purse of *bleeps to give is empty, too early in my life as a twenty-something-year-old Gen-Z. As adulthood happens to me without permission, it haunts me deeply to reflect on how many years and wasted tears I spent pursuing everything or too many things when only a few things matter.
As I listened to Malcolm Gladwell’s book, I Hate the Ivy League, of all the many arguments I loved about the book, one of my favorites was where he proposed that a better solution to making academic/career success a more equitable playing field for law students was to adopt a don’t ask, don’t tell policy. Whereby students wouldn’t be asked where they went to school, and they equally wouldn’t need to speak or continuously boast about it if, as many of these higher-ups pretentiously claim, where one goes to school doesn’t matter to their potential of becoming a successful lawyer. He further highlighted the impact of the state of students' happiness and joy while completing challenging academic pursuits.
In that part, I somehow could answer my irritation and indifference as I tucked yet another degree away. It was a subtle protest of my knowing that after all the so-called burnt midnight candles and sacrifices, the prestige, visibility, and recognition didn’t matter to who I am or want to be. On the one side, I could justify and explain how my education has been valuable to my life’s journey and how the scholarships or awards eased my financial need or helped secure certain opportunities. In hindsight, the almost inexistent grey area that I wish I had thought more about and acted on was knowing that I didn’t have to sacrifice that much joy and pleasure in getting these accomplishments.
While I have abandoned my career in college and scholarship success coaching, whenever I encounter students who ask for a word of advice, my recommendation always ends with having fun and making an intentional effort to experience memorable joy. I now try to be more present and take each day at a time, acknowledging that my most profound resentment about my undergraduate and graduate years was not staying in place to absorb the pleasure of the moments because I was always trying to be ahead and always exhausted from “doing everything in my power.” I could blame my introversion and other personal circumstances that led me to be the person who never went to parties, hardly hung out with friends, or even made friends at all from my college. However, at a deeper level, I know that my first-ever conviction that the weight of my sacrifices made success more meaningful was from the stereotype that unsuccessful students or people were the ones who didn’t sacrifice enough. But when the definition of success is not static, permanent, or one-size-fits-all, the value of suffering to attain many things becomes highly questionable.
One of my favorite quotes is by a character named Frank Underwood in the series House of Cards. He said, “There are two kinds of pain: the pain that makes you strong or the useless pain, the kind of pain that’s only suffering. I have no patience for useless things.” It sucks a little to know that when I look at these accolades and talk about it, most of what I remember is the suffering and sacrifice it demanded from me that now don’t matter. As much as I can look at a degree and say I made it, I wish I could scroll through my phone and see pictures of me connecting with friends and having fun or, sometimes, chats that I can re-read for the umpteenth time and giggle about. While I know my introversion will not let me be great and do the so-called “normal” fun things, there are so many things within the capacity of my personality that I could still have done.
When I look back at the most valuable pieces of advice my therapist and mentors have helped me realize, I could boil them down into these: I am not a victim of my life, I have a choice in many of my sufferings, suffering is not a badge of honor or guarantee of reward, suffering is not the measure for the worth of my life or work, and I can still make the most value out of my life with less suffering. And if these statements were true, what more joy would I have if I let loose often, did just enough to get what’s needed, and chose not to sacrifice sufferably while gaining the things that truly matter. While all my life experiences have sharpened me, in hindsight, I see many ways I could have still become a better person with less suffering, more joy, and compassion. I see more moments where I can confidently choose joy, and it would be the accomplishment. I see more situations where I won’t miss out by staying in place instead of always trying to be ahead; after all, no one can outrun time or outdo purpose.