Eve's Quote
The other day when I read this quote by Eve Ensler (of Vagina Monologues) from her TED speech, it made me wonder what I do want the most and how I could give that to others:
"When we give in the world what we want the most," Ensler says, "we heal the broken part inside each of us."
I don't think you need to be "broken" to want to give to the world what you want most. Maybe it helps, I don't know. Anyway, a few days later I had a nice conversation with the older mother (that's how she described herself) of a little girl Harrison befriended at the park. I saw that she was reading Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, which I had read, so I jumped at the chance to have a bookish conversation.
The book is about a journalist who goes undercover to work as a waitress, a maid and an employee at Wal-Mart. She set out to see if she could survive on the wages she earned. It turned out she could barely sustain a livable life. The book was extremely interesting to read and changed my perception of not only the people who work in those industries, but the industries themselves.
The mother said she could relate to working in a job that doesn't go anywhere; she drove a metro bus. But she didn't always do that. She took that job for the benefits and the higher pay that allow her to care for her daughter mostly on her own. Before being a driver she was a baker at a bakery in our neighborhood for fifteen years. I felt sad that she had to give up a creative job for one that didn't fulfill her in the least.
So of course I immediately prodded her about whether she'd open her own bakery and she said if she was going to do it, it would have been years ago. She thought she was past that point since she was nearing fifty. I wanted to tell her she was way too young to give up a dream, but I had been nosey enough already, so I made some dumb comment like, "Well everyone eats bread everyday."
Is it ever too late to follow your dreams? I don't think so.
My conversation with this mother made me realize how often I'm butting into other women's lives, telling them they should follow their passions if they have the slightest inkling to do so. Is that what I want the most right now? Is that why I keep pushing it on others? I'm not sure, but I certainly understand the feeling that it's too overwhelming to do a single thing more than you're doing right now, and of course there's the old fallback: I already have the best that life can offer - a healthy family - so I should just be grateful for what I have and shut the hell up.
Eve's quote was thought-provoking in any case, and I hope that someday I can follow its lead. I'll try to lay off of others in the meantime.
"When we give in the world what we want the most," Ensler says, "we heal the broken part inside each of us."
I don't think you need to be "broken" to want to give to the world what you want most. Maybe it helps, I don't know. Anyway, a few days later I had a nice conversation with the older mother (that's how she described herself) of a little girl Harrison befriended at the park. I saw that she was reading Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, which I had read, so I jumped at the chance to have a bookish conversation.
The book is about a journalist who goes undercover to work as a waitress, a maid and an employee at Wal-Mart. She set out to see if she could survive on the wages she earned. It turned out she could barely sustain a livable life. The book was extremely interesting to read and changed my perception of not only the people who work in those industries, but the industries themselves.
The mother said she could relate to working in a job that doesn't go anywhere; she drove a metro bus. But she didn't always do that. She took that job for the benefits and the higher pay that allow her to care for her daughter mostly on her own. Before being a driver she was a baker at a bakery in our neighborhood for fifteen years. I felt sad that she had to give up a creative job for one that didn't fulfill her in the least.
So of course I immediately prodded her about whether she'd open her own bakery and she said if she was going to do it, it would have been years ago. She thought she was past that point since she was nearing fifty. I wanted to tell her she was way too young to give up a dream, but I had been nosey enough already, so I made some dumb comment like, "Well everyone eats bread everyday."
Is it ever too late to follow your dreams? I don't think so.
My conversation with this mother made me realize how often I'm butting into other women's lives, telling them they should follow their passions if they have the slightest inkling to do so. Is that what I want the most right now? Is that why I keep pushing it on others? I'm not sure, but I certainly understand the feeling that it's too overwhelming to do a single thing more than you're doing right now, and of course there's the old fallback: I already have the best that life can offer - a healthy family - so I should just be grateful for what I have and shut the hell up.
Eve's quote was thought-provoking in any case, and I hope that someday I can follow its lead. I'll try to lay off of others in the meantime.
posted by Anne at 1:49 PM
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