Everything Counts

The Thing About Being Happy and Being Human

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(Image credit: Haigen G. Pearson)

I can’t stop thinking about the Question of the Week in George Saunders’ Story Club. It was written in by a person who has spent their life being an excellent physician, and also a not-great fiction writer. They don’t particularly like being a physician, even though they’re great at it, and they love writing, even though they’re bad at it.

The question was, how does one decide what to do with their time on this planet? Do we spend it doing something we enjoy, even if we’re bad at it? Or do we focus on what we’re best at, even if we don’t enjoy it, because it positively impacts the most people?

This, of course, is further complicated by the fact that our time is finite (and in the case of the person submitting the question, maybe more so than most—at the time they wrote it, they were awaiting some potentially catastrophic health news).

As always, Saunders’ answer was kind and measured and lovely (you should really just abandon this now and go read his), but as I read it my own answer came up clear and un-ignorable and, as with most true things, was a total surprise.

As you may know, one of my husband’s friends recently died. Towards the end, he was given thirty days to live. When we, my husband and I, heard this, it felt like we had been given that same thirty days. Instantly what mattered became clear, what didn’t matter fell away. I really thought in that moment I knew exactly how I would spend my last month on this planet.

I used to think I’d drop everything. I’d be outside all day with my dog and husband, in the cold, damp woods. At night I’d eat meals with people I loved. I’d listen to live music until my ear drums ached. I’d buy fresh flowers and eat buttery pastries and listen to birds. I’d get too cold. I’d get too hot. I’d be a simple, pleasure-seeking mammal, suspending myself inside time and sensation, inhabiting this body as deeply and fully as possible for as long as I still had it.

(Damn. Now that I write that, on the precipice of a Monday, it actually sounds really good…)

But just for the sake of hearing things out, holding them up to the light (getting them out from under the woodland canopy, so to speak) here’s the surprise: I don’t think I’d actually do any of that. What came to mind as I was reading that person’s question was kind of the opposite. I think I’d just try to do the most with what I have.

What I mean by that is I think my limitations would kind of set me free. If you truly only have a short amount of time left, all you have is what’s already at your disposal. You only have the tools you have—the skills you’ve amassed to date, the knowledge you’ve already acquired, the people you’re already surrounded by—for making any kind of marginal impact in this world.

It would be great if I had been able to get good enough at writing that I could do it that way. Then I could spend my last days writing beautifully and leave this mortal coil behind with a gift of precisely rendered human truth, but I can’t. I didn’t. My best shot would be to take every single day I’m given and use the tools that I have to do the best I can.

There’s part of this that makes me sad. I’m semi-attached to the fantasy of having nothing to lose and running wild and feral until my body gives out. But to pretend that’s what I’d actually do is to pretend that the only thing stopping me from doing it now is the awareness of how much time I have left. And I don’t think that’s true.

What’s stopping me from doing that now is my obligations to others. And not just in the “signed contract” sense, but in the deeper, cosmic sense: Using my small little life to make others feel light and happy and seen and cared for is really all I want. And like it or not so far I’ve picked a methodology.

But, as to the real answer to the question of whether to do A or B, I’m with Saunders: It’s not either/or. It’s and/both.

What’s really our life’s work? All of it. Every second of it. The way you thank your partner for the morning coffee. The kindness with which you chat to your pet as you give them breakfast. The way you take seriously the responsibilities of the work that earns your living, as well as the work that fuels your soul (rarely are they the same thing).

Also:

Never quit doing something that makes you happy. Even if you’re bad at it.

Remember that helping people makes you happy. Even if it’s hard and unpleasant and stressful.

That’s the weird thing about being happy and being human: All of it counts.

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