On the most recent episode of The Good Wife (ep. “Long Way Home”), a young, hotshot lawyer suddenly resigns after discovering that she’s pregnant. She looks a little sheepish when saying goodbye to Diane (the boss) and Alicia, her mentor. They assure her of a fab maternity package and great telecommuting options. She doesn’t want any of it, and they’re perplexed. Alicia says, “You can have it all. Be a wife, mother and a lawyer.”
She merely shakes her head and replies, “Maybe it’s different for my generation, but I don’t have to prove anything…or if I have to, I don’t want to.”
Later, Diane says, She’ll be back in 15 years, like you. Alicia smiles and says, No, I don’t think so.
Diane replies, I’m not sure the glass ceiling was broken for this. Alicia says, Actually, it probably was.
What if we lived our lives with nothing to prove? No expectations. No “being something” in the world. No accomplishments. No awards.
What if we always chose from pleasure? Ease?
Who would we be then, if we had nothing to prove?
This is a major theme as I play with this decade, but it doesn’t stem from a sense of failure. Indeed, I’ve done or obtained many things that society considers successful (degrees, traditional “work”, being an entrepreneur, etc). Do those accomplishments make me happy now? Not really, but I’m grateful for the experiences. They serve as a reminder to stay within the life I’m living now — no regrets, no striving, no yearning for contentment outside of my own being.
Much of my early accomplishment was unfinished business from childhood: pleasing my parents and a heavenly Father (because, Lord knows, I couldn’t please the earthly one). It birthed from a perfectionist streak, shining like two-way mirror over a lake of suffering.
I found tough women mentors who raised the bar in my 20s — and they were surely valuable while emerging from my fundamentalist past. Now in my 40s, I have less of an urgency to prove — and am actively dismantling the need to strive.
Proving is different than pure desire. It all depends on how conscious we are of our motives.
My desire now is to just be. Appreciate. Notice. Linger over the beauty of a slowly unfolding rose. Celebrate the ways that I’m blooming in a softer and more forgiving way.
This is a self-creation. I can’t tell you how to live. What I can say: after 42 years on this planet, striving doesn’t work. Nor do cubicles — or limiting my life in any way that is unnatural. I’m a responsible adult. I pay my bills and respect the law. I have a great mind, however, that travels further than this world and body. That mind encourages me to learn about this Raven – allowing discovery with nothing to prove.
There’s no blame or hidden apology for my existence. Only freedom.
