Our Plan B Life Archives - Page 4 of 14

It’s only in recent years that I’ve realized: I’m a rare bird, when it comes to knowing my PURPOSE in life. I’ve always known I was a writer.

As evidence, I submit to you two of my primary school projects:

From a wee stapled booklet titled “When I Get Bigger.”

I’ve always assumed that everyone had this same strong sense of direction. Maybe a person’s “calling” is hard to define, because they don’t know how to direct their talents and passions into a specific “job,” or because their lives are crowded with other distractions and pressures (“The arts won’t pay the mortgage — go be a dental hygienist instead”), but surely, I thought, in their heart of hearts there is a spark of passion that, if cultivated, would bring them happiness and fulfillment.

But now I’m 39 and meeting all kinds of case studies to the contrary. I have friends who choose their work based on prestige and salary, friends who “lucked” into their “good” jobs and just keep doing those jobs, and many friends who simply need to pay their mortgage and feed their kids, regardless of how happy the parents are at work.

In other words: I know plenty of middle-aged adults who never DECIDED what they wanted to be when they grew up.

Maybe that’s fine. Maybe these people are content with their work, and use their free time to do fun things that make them happy.

But I see so many people being grumpy about their work, counting down until quitting time or their retirement years, and then using their free time to drink, binge-watch Netflix and “recover” from their work week before Monday rolls around again. This pains me.

HEATHER: “How’s your day?”

PERSON AT THEIR WORK: “It’s my Monday, so … you know.”

We only have one life. Why are so many of us wasting our time? Don’t we want a happier life, if that’s possible?

“You can be anything you want to be.”

I blame some of my generation’s aimlessness on the 1990s/Millennial parenting adage: “You can be anything you want to be.”

Specifically, I blame it on the missing disclaimers in that sentence, which should read: “You can be anything you want to be, if you work really hard at it, and adapt your goals when necessary, and accept that achieving one goal might mean not achieving other goals.”

I think most of us aren’t willing to put in the time and work and struggle needed to achieve a lofty “anything” goal.

Or, we’re so overwhelmed by the infinite options available to us that we grasp for direction, and end up holding onto a goal we didn’t choose, because it’s handy and relatively easy to achieve.

Instead of having overwhelming, infinite choice, I wonder if it would be better to be directed toward a single path.

I found this wonderful bit about Victorian-era parenting in Agatha Christie’s autobiography:

The Victorians looked dispassionately at their offspring and made up their minds about their capacities. A. was obviously going to be ‘the pretty one.’ B. was ‘the clever one.’ C. was going to be plain and was definitely not intellectual. Good works would be C.’s best chance. And so on. Sometimes, of course, they were wrong, but on the whole it worked. There is an enormous relief in not being expected to produce something that you haven’t got.
– Agatha Christie

While I’m not advocating for a return to Victorian parenting, my parents always knew I was a writer, and encouraged me to feed that spark. I went to university to study English literature and creative writing. Dad answered all my panicky phone calls with: “Do what makes you happy. It’ll all work out in the end.” (And it has.)

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

I would hope, with adults constantly asking kids what they want to be when they grow up, some of us would eventually consider the question.

If you’ve never really thought about it, or if it’s been a few years, why not spend a few minutes now ruminating on these questions:

If you only had one year left to live, what would you do with that time?
If you never had to work again, how would you spend your days?
Of all the things you do, which five things make you happiest? Which make you feel most fulfilled?
If you had the time and energy to volunteer for one cause, what would it be and why?
When do you feel jealous of others? What is it about their lives that makes you envious?

And, with a nod to the Victorian-era parents:

What did your parents think you’d be when you grew up? What strengths did they see in you?

Finding your ikigai

I really do believe every kid has a spark of talent or purpose or meaning inside them. I like to think every adult has that spark still, even if it’s been smothered by “real world” pressures and other choices. Creating a life that feeds that spark can be possible: the first step is to find it.

I don’t know much about the Japanese concept of ikigai — only enough that I had it tattooed on my forearm (ha). But here’s a colourful graphic from the Interwebs that might inspire you:

Ikigai isn’t as simple as “do what you love” or “be employable.” It’s a compromise.

How would you fill in this chart? What do you love, what are you good at, what do you have to offer that you can be paid for, and what can you do that the world needs?

Living with purpose

I’m lucky that I’ve always known what I am, and what I want to do. I know writing brings me the most joy. I know I can make money from it (thank you, Medium.com). I know it’s my ikigai.

But I still struggle daily with myself to make the time to write. It’s still a constant effort to feed that spark. There are always distractions: the laundry, my weedy lawn, sunny mountains to climb.

That’s why I got my latest tattoo: timshel ikigai. A smoosh of Hebrew and Japanese that means (to me, at least) that it’s my choice, at all times, whether I spend my time writing or not. It’s my choice whether I do the thing that fulfils me and gives my life meaning, or not.

This tattoo is an always-visible reminder for me to use my time well. To feed and cultivate that spark inside me. To not waste this life.

So. What are you doing today?

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Do you think we all have a spark or purpose or calling? Is it a bad thing if we don’t follow it? Please comment below, share this post online or read more posts on this website.

To join me on this epic adventure of being a writer, subscribe to my monthly email newsletter: click here to sign up.

On the drive to the big city to watch Avengers: Endgame in a 3D movie theatre, the 12- and 13-year-olds in the back seat said they’d heard the movie was “sad.”

I’d expected “epic” or “cool,” but not “sad.”

One asked for Kleenexes when we walked into the theatre, to be prepared.

What?

I watched the (epic, cool) movie, waiting for the “sad” part. The dad beside me choked up at the opening scene. The teenager used all his Kleenex. Near the end, I got a bit wet-eyed.

What??

Post-movie, I thought it through. I wanted to figure out what was different about this sci-fi fantasy action flick that made it “sad.” There were the usual battle scenes, one-on-one fights and, yes, deaths. But isn’t that just part of any sci-fi fantasy action film?

Avengers: Infinity Wars

I won’t give away any spoilers for Endgame, but just so we’re all on the same page here I’m going to summarize the end of Avengers: Infinity Wars. (If you don’t want to hear it, click here to learn how to make yogurt instead.)

At the end of Infinity Wars, half of the universe’s population dies when a bad guy named Thanos snaps his fingers. It’s not gory or anything: they just turn into dust, crumble and blow away. Who dies is an arbitrary half of all living things: men, women and children, birds, fish and animals, hero protagonists, evildoers and civilians.

The follow-up movie, Endgame, opens as this half-genocide is taking effect on Earth. Half the population abruptly ceases to exist. The movie then moves us ahead to five years in the future.

Sure, mass genocide is a “sad” premise, but the movie really is your classic superhero action blockbuster. Aren’t we all used to people dying in movies? The Lord of the Rings battle scenes where thousands are slaughtered. Entire planets (and civilizations) being blasted out of existence in Star Wars. Beloved heroes gasping their last words.

I’ve watched all 264 episodes of Murder, She Wrote and the bereaved bounce back surprisingly quickly every time. On the screen, death is just a plot device.

So … why is Endgame sad?

Endgame is to grief as The Matrix is to philosophy

I realized that Avengers: Endgame is actually a study in grief. And, because the script explores and portrays grief in so many ways so very accurately, the deaths and the stories of the bereaved touch the audience in a completely different way and on a much larger emotional scale than any other Hollywood movie I’ve seen.

Back in the olden days of 1999, I watched The Matrix in a movie theatre with a bunch of friends. We’d literally just finished writing the final exam for Philosophy 100, and throughout the movie we’d whisper with glee: “Brain in a vat!” “Plato’s cave!” as we recognized basic philosophical concepts in the movie.

Watching Endgame felt the same. I’ve experienced grief, I’ve read about and explored grief for the past four years, and here was a movie that showed me all the lessons I’ve learned, sometimes word-for-word.

Lessons in Grief

Reactions to Loss

My favourite book on terminal illness and death, Maggie Callanan’s Final Journeys, talks about grief and all the different ways it manifests, including anger, denial, depression, acceptance and bargaining.

Endgame gives us characters who exemplify all of these emotions, as the survivors react to losing their loved ones. We have the despairing hero who transforms into a mad dog vigilante. We have those with hope (which sometimes looks like denial), and those without hope, who are struggling to find meaning after loss. There are support groups. Crying on a blind date is normal, in a world where millions grieve the loss of their spouses.

Giving Permission to Die

I’m sure that at least one of Endgame‘s scriptwriters has lived through grief, or researched it. Two scenes in particular wowed me for their word-perfect accuracy, because that scriptwriter understood the need to give permission:

In one scene, when a character knows they will die, they say: “Let me go.”

In another scene, when someone comforts their dying loved one, they say: “We’ll be fine. You can rest.” (That was the scene that made me weepy. I repeated similar words to Brock over and over again in his final four days of life.)

Our display at Brock’s memorial service really brought home the permanence of his death. (Photo from September 29, 2017.)

Giving permission is a hard thing to do. It took me a long time to be able to say those words to Brock, and when I could finally say them, I still didn’t mean them. But giving permission is a normal part of the dying process, and sometimes the dying person waits (and suffers, in pain or discomfort) until they get that permission before they’ll let go.

So what?

Why does it matter, that Endgame has depicted grief so well?

It’s hard to talk about death and grief, so people don’t. But it’s an important conversation to have. Endgame‘s superhero action storyline is the spoonful of sugar to make this conversation palatable.
It’s healthy for us to see our realities and emotions reflected in movies and other media forms: it’s cathartic. Endgame lures us to the theatre with the promise of a fantastical escape, then delivers three hours of grief therapy. For some of us in the audience, it gives us what we need. (It wouldn’t surprise me if some audience members walk out, because they wanted temporary escape from their grief and feel blindsided.)
This movie makes pre-teens weep in public. It makes it okay to respond to sadness and cry. These same pre-teens slaughter video game characters every day without blinking, and maybe this movie will re-civilize them somewhat. Maybe my young nephew will kinda sorta understand what it was like for me to lose my husband, because he saw Endgame.

Just as The Matrix made ontology and existentialism accessible concepts, maybe Avengers: Endgame will inspire mainstream conversations around death and grief.

Maybe it will raise the bar for future Hollywood movies and challenge them to depict the bereaved more accurately.

Maybe this movie about people with super-human powers, facing evil, alien forces, will help re-humanize us.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please comment below, share this post online or read more posts on this website.

To join me on this epic adventure of being a writer, subscribe to my email newsletter: click here to sign up.

Heather McLeod

Category Archives: Our Plan B Life

What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?