Labors of Love

A high school girl asked me the other day for some advice. (Not to be confused with my high school daughter, whom I thanked the other day for always being there to remind me what a moron I am; she appreciated my gratitude, and was even polite enough to say "you're welcome.")

But the girl who barely knows me, who has no idea what a moron I am, wondered whether she should pursue what she is passionate about (her choice) or something that pays well (her mother's preference). Two completely independent circles in a Venn diagram, I suppose. My son, who wrote the other day to tell me how excited he was about his recent contract renewal and its attendant signing bonus and salary increase mostly because he relished the idea of turning it down, would think the choice to be a no brainer. Why work your butt off for some bitter, nasty middle manager when so many of life's passions, the things that make you tick, beckon tantalizingly from outside the constraining walls of your job? "WAIT! Don't be hasty!" I wanted to scream across the Pacific, across that damn International Dateline, knowing he generally shuts down his Internet connection right after he sends me a provocative email and would not receive my response for at least another twenty-four hours. I typed in some carefully chosen words: "Pursuing your passion is great, especially if you have food, shelter, clothing (and, if you ask me, an occasional new bit of uplifting bling) while you are doing it."

Days have passed, and my perfectly reasonable commentary has been met only with silence. Well, except for the brief Skype episode during which he told me he has a fever of one hundred two and the Japanese vitamins he'd been popping all day weren't bringing it down. Go figure. Anyway, intermingled with my garden variety nightmares are images of a fat and lucrative contract being shredded and released like confetti from the belly of a plane piloted by my son. His belly is as empty as the plane's, his whole being as precarious as the thin skinned metal machine being knocked around by icy gusts as it plunges blindly ahead. I have enough to worry about; I would love him to pursue his passions, but I'd sleep better if I knew he had two feet firmly planted in solid ground. And a bed to sleep in.

A bit of a dreamer and a firm believer in the pursuit of passion myself, I would be a hypocrite if I were to discourage either the inquisitive girl or my son. But should I remind them that passions can be illusory, that time dilutes passion, waters it down the way the microwave did last night when I over-nuked a frozen solid pint of Ben & Jerry's S'mores ice cream? Maybe the secret to maintaining the buzz is patience and immersion in a whole lot of drudgery before rewarding yourself. I should have worked through the humdrum task of doing the dishes first, with the slowly softening pint on the counter taunting me in the corner of my eye. Dipping my spoon into the melted slop was about as exciting as coming home to find the guy you once waited hours, even days, to see sitting in front of your family room flat screen with a beer in one hand and scratching himself through threadbare boxers with the other.

Not that there's anything that horrible about the guy in the boxers. Not necessarily, anyway. Passion is time consuming, all consuming really. It doesn't pay the bills, and odds are the guy on the couch might be of some help with that. He might even change a light bulb, make you laugh, sit and listen while you complain about your day. So who cares if his hand is in his pants? You have electricity. You have dependability. And, if you don't let things slide too far, there can still be a wild night here and there.

Really, though, why would I tell this girl or my son any of this. They both have plenty of time to figure it out for themselves. Should the girl go off to college and opt out of writing classes, enroll herself exclusively in accounting and statistics or, and I tremble at the mere thought, organic chemistry? Of course not! Should my son stay where he is, take the bonus and the raise, toe the line and spend another year feeling crushed by his job? Of course not! Not yet anyway. As long as he doesn't mind living in squalor and eating on the cheap, as long as nobody is counting on him to be sitting on the couch in his boxers waiting to be called upon for mundane chores, the fat pay check can wait. They are young. They don't need to relinquish their passions; they just need to figure out for themselves how and when to fit them in.

Stranger things have happened. "I got a B- on my physics test!" read the text last week from my high school junior, who would much rather be out running or chatting on line with friends or, frankly, having root canal than thinking about physics. But a B-, that was big for her in a class she despises and finds incomprehensible. (My high school physics teacher used to wake me up by using me in hypotheticals: a squirrel shoots a bee bee gun at Lisa, who is sitting on a greased roof....) "Engineering School here we come!" I responded. "Yay!" was her reply. As passionate a communication as I have received from her in a while. My daughter the engineer. The passionate engineer.

Zen Diagram

Maybe one day, for all of these kids, passion will merge with the lucrative, and the things they most enjoy will not have to wait for some elusive chunk of free time that might never arrive.

All of it, I told the high school girl. There's no reason why you cannot pursue it all.