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"I can have it all" is one of the most misbegotten notions. What is "all"? Is it supposed to be a successful and upwardly mobile professional life, an ample disposable income, a loving and richly nuanced relationship with your life partner, a fabulous and full relationship with your children, a lovely organized home, a group of supportive friends, enriching leisure time, firm thighs and a glowing future?
Oh woman, please!
Today I bring great spiritual news --
Give it up! That kind of perfection does not exist! You cannot have it all! So stop trying!
Doesn't that feel better?
Not only do many of us long to "have it all," we think something is wrong if we do not have it. We want the great job, the perfect family, the ideal love relationship, the beautiful home. We've read the books and magazines, watched the TV shows, and spent time at the video altars of self-help gurus. We have trained ourselves in all the ways we are supposed to be able to "have it all." But something seems oddly amiss.
We are tired. Trying to create a whole life from so many demanding segments, each of which requires so much energy, is exhausting -- physically, emotionally and spiritually.
We feel guilty when our life-events do not have a picture-perfect resolution. We feel that we have failed, or that our spouses, children or colleagues have let us down. Or, worse yet, we feel we have let them down -- or that we have, in our weakness, not provided the right role model for other women. We strive to assemble a life where our accomplishments in every quarter are flawless.
We have to stop that. It is not only not possible; it is a sad struggle.
We seek balance for our lives in an unbalanced world. If the details of life seem to be getting the best of us, we think something is wrong.
That kind of life isn't wrong. It is just normal.
I have an 87-year-old cousin. She is one smart cookie. And she has not had an easy life. This past weekend, she was talking to me about someone she knew years ago who almost resented it when rough things happened to her. This woman recited stories about her hardships over and over through the years to anyone who would listen. Here is what my cousin Ida had to say: "It's all about the bumps."
Needless to say, I asked for details.
"Bumps ... you know ... bumps in the road. Everybody has them. Life can be hard for the luckiest among us. Everyone gets their share of bumps, some more than others. The important thing is to get over them as best you can, and let them make you a better person, not to get all upset that you had them."
Then she got quiet. We were driving along a stretch of wooded New England country road. The summer greenery was vibrant and deep. It was cool beneath the bowers of trees that arched over the country lane. Wildflowers blossomed by the side of the road. She looked out the car window with a slight smile on her face.
"See? This is what I mean. This road is a side road. It has bumps in it. But it is so much more interesting than the superhighway. It means we have to slow down, to notice things. The bumps make us notice how beautiful it is here ... Get it?"
I got it.
The irony is that when we think that we have to have it all, in our determination to get it, we end up missing so much. Having a little of everything means that we have to sacrifice the depth of something.
Look around you at the women you know personally (not just idols from afar) who you think really have good lives. My guess is that they do not fit into the "having it all" paradigm.
I have a friend who recently retired early from a job she enjoyed (as a teacher). She has two children and a husband who all love her. She is no housekeeper. Her home is a perpetual cyclone. It's clean, but a rousing mess. "Something had to
