Guest Post: Response to Universe, I Need A Raise

From my beloved R. I'd say she needs her own blog, but then I wouldn't get these awesome guest posts:

In reading your post, my dear friend, I was reminded of a different online conversation I had recently with a different friend, and my answer to youtoday is adapted from one I wrote to him, but I think it is still apropos ofyour mood.

I recently came across this quote from Rilke:"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in avery foreign tongue. . .And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then you will gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."

I give you this quote today- on this day, when the dark ceiling of thesleepless night just behind you still looms large- because I have the sense from your post that you are at a place in your life where you, perhaps, feel that you should have answers, or at least more answers than you haveactually thus far found. That you have reached this place ofhands-thrown-in-the-air because, despite all the decisions you have made inorder to have those answers, you are now somewhat disappointed that thereare still things you don't know.

So I wanted to tell you that I have noticed, among my peers who have children in particular, that most people seem to feel that there is some mechanism by which they should have crossed over into a zone of having onlyanswers. Perhaps this is because, once you have a child, you feel some certain responsibility to actually have them. I don't know. Or even if you don't have children, there seems to be some line, some place-shift in the environment that should have happened, around 32, where we stopped being kids, and realized we became, for better or for worse, the adults we alwaysknew were waiting for us.

And yet, for my part- even at 36 and well past that imaginary demarcation line- I can't quite silence my inner teenager and ask "Why *should*?" and"Who says?" Perhaps because I recently learned in the hardest way possible that not all answers are right, but it seems to me now that in some ways,the questions have really never been so good. I was never so sure as when I was 18, but I have never had more wonder about the workings of the world, and sometimes my own heart, as I do now. If you embrace it like that, you may just find that it isn't so much about the answers you don't have, but rather about the questions the foundation of prior answers has allowed youto beget.

I say all this now because I found this quote in the midst of one of my darkest periods, and when I did I realized not only that the darkness was simply a form of a question, but that I had found my epitaph. Live the questions. In fact, my own personal belief is that questions, dark or light, are our tie to life. And that only in the moments before death, will all the answers be revealed to us. Only then will we be free to let go, and fall from the earth, because our souls are satisfied that we *know*-whatever it is that our lives where shaped to find out.

So as you move through whatever struggle you are facing today, and whatever compromises you may be making- with your kitchen, your job, and what have you- I just wanted you to know that you are already living an extraordinary life. You have already found many answers, you will seek many more, and- as you have on occasion already- you will have glimpses of transcendence. Today is one day, and if you are giving up your hopes and dreams, remember that it is likely only in order to make way for the new ones that await you. Don't let the answers you think you have block the questions that will help you get there.

The Yawp Gets Returned

A beautiful gift came into my email inbox this morning. It is a gift to PB from a fellow traveler, a gift to you, and certainly a gift to me because I'm still fighting a bad cold and can't get my whoses and whatsis together enought to write anything intelligent, plus the cold medicine makes me feel like I'm typing with my elbows. It is a rumination from my beloved RR, and reminded me that in additional to all the other logical magic she brings to me on a regular basis, she's a knockout of a writer.

The open call still stands, folks, and it has resulted in at least one other guest post that I'm hoping will be ready to go up by tomorrow. Be well.

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From MBRR:

Having been in PB's shoes, or at least similar places of flux, at various times in my life, I can understand what she is going through. Closing your eyes and taking a giant leap of faith to change your life always has repercussions, but unfortunately they aren't always the one's we think they will be when our feet first leave the ground. When those repercussions turn out to be not what you planned, it can make you want to shake your fist at the universe. Come on, universe! You want to say, I did the hard part already! I made the decision. I landed here. Now it is your turn to bring serendipity to my side. Consciousness and mindfulness, rather than acquiescence to the status quo brought me this far, now I should be rewarded for my bravery. Shouldn't I?

I have been contemplating this question in particular for the last several days because I too recently made a decision to take my life in a certain direction, one that I felt was right in my gut. Yet I have been faced with the harsh reality that the universe has more or less taken my decision and thrown it back in my face. For 3 days I have been railing inside- my thoughts black and spiteful and unproductive. Ef you, universe- and Ef your mother, too! I have been eaten by the unfairness of it all. Everyone, and I mean everyone I know agreed that the decision to do a PhD was the right one for me. People who have known me a long time said they always thought that I would, and wondered why it took me so long to figure it out. People at my job said absolutely. It is the right path for you. Academics told me I was a virtual shoe-in, what with my experience, grades, and knowledge. I was a rare candidate, indeed. Universities would probably throw money at me and beg me to come study. And so I was sure. My gut told me it was the right way to go. And I had external validation and support for my decision. What other signs could there have been, or could I have read? And yet, here I am. 3 out of 4 applications rejected. One more pending and not a shoe-in or a sure thing by any means.

And so while I wait for magic #4, I have been forced to deal with the question that I really never thought would come up. What will I do if I don't get in? Some people have suggested that I wait and re-apply next year. This seems to be how the game of graduate school gets played these days. And re-applying may be a test from the universe about how loud my gut was really speaking to me. If it is the right path, the universe seems to be saying, you can wait. And yet, I can't. Maybe others can, but I cannot. I went through a huge amount of personal upheaval to arrive at this decision, and I am just about worn out. Doing the PhD was to be the new path, the one I chose after almost 2 years of hard soul searching and heart wrenching decisions of all kinds. It was to be the answer I tore the rest of my life apart looking to find. Now I just don't have the stamina to wait another year, and go through another round of applications, to have it come out wrong all over again. I just don't think I have it in me.

Nevertheless, once I decided that the PhD was the path I wanted, I came to see it as not just the answer to what I would do, but the answer in some way to who I am. For the last year, since I decided that it is what I would do, I have held the decision and the idea of it close to my chest, and defended it as a part of my identity- the true identity I had been growing into for all these years. My chance to become the woman I always knew I could be. And in the waiting, I have gone into some dark places. Each rejection a personal affront, and my life hanging before me like a butterfly inside a cocoon, doomed to be forever unrealized.

Today though, I realized something for the first time. Whether I do or whether I don't get accepted, a PhD is not who I am. I am not the sum total of the knowledge I possess, the opportunities I have been given, the rejections I have received. I am also not how I look on paper; I am not the deficiencies on my resume, nor the antithesis to those who have gotten what I wanted. I am not the praise I have been given, nor the shock of others who were also convinced I would get in. I am greater than all these things, and all these moments. And I am enough. As I am, with all the knowledge, and experience, and education I already have. I am enough. Somewhere in the universe there is a place for me to pursue and create the life of the butterfly I am capable of becoming. Even if it doesn't turn out to be where and as I, and my gut, thought it should be. All I can do is trust that the universe knows better than I what my fate should be.

So what is it that has tossed around for me about PB's post? I guess it was that I wanted to say to her, let go a little. Desperation won't help, but money is the same color no matter where it comes from. Take a job waiting tables if you have to. Sign up with every temp agency you can find. In desperate times, any job can be the job, until the right one comes. In the meantime, remember that the money that feeds you, isn't who you are. And just to show that I know all this is easier said than done, I once worked folding shirts and greeting customers at The Gap, even though I had a master's degree and 5 years professional experience in my back pocket. I needed money badly, and I couldn't face receiving unemployment. After a month, I left the shirts to start the job that, 7 years later, is my career.

Finally, for both PB and myself, the mantra I have been trying to hold onto in a very uncertain time is a quote from Rilke. "...And for the rest, let life happen to you. Believe me: life is right, in any case."For PB and myself, I sincerely hope we both get what we want, but even if we don't, none of us is only our wishes or desires, realized or not. We exist outside of wanting. And we are enough.