I listen to TED talks quite a lot. I try to branch out with my podcasts - but mostly, I just love TED talks and best of all I love the TED radio hour (though I also spend as much time as possible listening to This American Life, and now I loooove the new one, Serial). But do you know what? TED talks often make me feel inadequate and unsuccessful. I heard one this morning about a doctor who quit his job at UCSF and went to Somalia and then another country in Africa. He worked mostly on containing and eradicating typhoid and cholera outbreaks. Then, tired of that, and ready to live somewhere with running water and thermostats, he moved back to the US and decided that gun violence should be treated like an epidemic and has done some impressive work to stop it.
And what am I doing? Compared to that guy, I am doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. It is more than a bit discouraging. So then I have little pep talks with myself about raising my kids and feeding them healthy food and how much I love and like my husband and that I am happy in my life. And, hey, maybe Lizzie (or Tommy) is going to do enough to help people who need help that I don't actually need to.
But did my parents raise me for my output to be two happy and successful people (and I fully recognize that we are nowhere near being able to put my children in the 'happy' and 'successful' columns though at this moment in time they are both)??? No, they most certainly thought I would do something - anything! - in my own right, completely separate from my littles.
Would you call this a midlife crisis? Or is just this an inability to appreciate and revel in my life as it is here and now?
Another TED talk lady perked me up a bit yesterday when she said that telling people to follow their passion is stupid: the few people that have identifiable, honest-to-God passions are definitely following them, and the rest of us just feel disappointed that we don't have a passion to pursue, or confused. She suggests that we all follow our curiosities. And that, my friends, is most definitely what I do. Maybe, for now, it's enough.
And what am I doing? Compared to that guy, I am doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. It is more than a bit discouraging. So then I have little pep talks with myself about raising my kids and feeding them healthy food and how much I love and like my husband and that I am happy in my life. And, hey, maybe Lizzie (or Tommy) is going to do enough to help people who need help that I don't actually need to.
But did my parents raise me for my output to be two happy and successful people (and I fully recognize that we are nowhere near being able to put my children in the 'happy' and 'successful' columns though at this moment in time they are both)??? No, they most certainly thought I would do something - anything! - in my own right, completely separate from my littles.
Would you call this a midlife crisis? Or is just this an inability to appreciate and revel in my life as it is here and now?
Another TED talk lady perked me up a bit yesterday when she said that telling people to follow their passion is stupid: the few people that have identifiable, honest-to-God passions are definitely following them, and the rest of us just feel disappointed that we don't have a passion to pursue, or confused. She suggests that we all follow our curiosities. And that, my friends, is most definitely what I do. Maybe, for now, it's enough.
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