Last Friday I found
myself underneath my car. One side was
jacked up with my little spare-tire jack.
My legs stuck out into the only free space on the driveway, the rest of
which was covered in an assortment of brush guards, radiator fans, and other
various parts and bolts. I stared up at
my coolant reservoir as I yanked and wiggled a slimy black hose. It finally came free, simultaneously smashing
the back of my hand and filling up my ear with a stream of bright green
antifreeze. Success! It was almost completely dark and it had
started to rain, but I was elated. My
coolant tank was free and now all I had to do was install the new one and
figure out how to put back all the parts I had removed. I had overcome.
Near the climax of
one of my favorite movies, Little Miss Sunshine,
Steve Carell talks about one of the greatest French writers of all time. "Total loser. Never had a real job.
Unrequited love affairs. Spent 20 years writing a book almost no one reads. But
he's also probably the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Anyway, he gets down
to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he
suffered, Those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he
was. All those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn't learn a
thing."
I remember my first
manager and professional mentor at Honeywell told me he preferred working with
the small turbine engines as opposed to the larger, more prioritized and funded
projects. "There's more obstacles"
he said, "I like the challenge."
I wondered if maybe the path of least resistance wasn't always the most
obvious choice. What if I started
choosing paths that had more obstacles, just because they had more
obstacles? Maybe life isn't about
creating safe environments free of hardships for yourself or avoiding all
suffering. Maybe spending time
overcoming obstacles in order to be free of them is counter-productive. Maybe overcoming obstacles in order to get to
a place where you can find bigger obstacles is more fulfilling.
Every once in a
while I question why I chose to work a job that I have to pay to do. Why did I leave a job that pays me lots of
money to do something I literally have to beg on the side just to sustain
myself? I look at my seemingly
insurmountable fundraising goal and feel a little queasy. How am I ever going to find 30 monthly
supporters? But then I remember that in
the right context, even antifreeze can taste like delicious success, and I know that
that queasy feeling in my stomach is actually a good indicator that I'm on the right
path.
