Learning What Matters
I do weird things now, things I never consciously realized would be a part of my life. I clean trash cans. Sort mail. Go to the store to purchase toilet paper. Clean out the fridge. It’s fascinating that, though you have relatively little freedom as a young person, you have a very unique freedom from these adult responsibilities.
Nobody ever asks a child “why didn’t you add ketchup to the grocery list?” or “I hope you paid your bike insurance, otherwise you won’t be able to drive.” That’s a pretty unique freedom only afforded to kids.
My parents shared a deep desire to preserve this preciousness of their children’s formative years: “Your job is school,” they’d say, “you can work at a job when you are older.” By no means did this allow an abdication of responsibilities — I was still instilled with a potent work ethic and expected to do my chores on time and with a pleasant demeanor (not to say I was a paragon of virtue: I frequently struggled with the “demeanor” requirement, grudgingly carrying out tasks with a dark cloud over my head). But the delay of joining the workforce looped back into what I learned from my parents about money: don’t chase it. Save it. They never said those words to me, but instead lead by example.
These attitudes painted a bright line in my mind — there were things I could have and things I couldn’t. At 15, many of my peers were chasing cars. They’d work their summers away at the local Target, then put it all toward a car they wanted. Guess what? I wanted to do that, too! I wanted a car of my very own. Partly because, and I vividly remember this conversation: “girls won’t want to date me if I pick them up in my parents’ minivan.” No, girls didn’t want to date me because I was socially awkward, poor at eye contact, and introverted. It had nothing to do with the car. But anyway, for me, my very own car was on the other side of that bright line — on the “not happening” side. This produced a change in me whose value I didn’t realize — denying the possibility helps extinguish the desire. I don’t say that it automatically eliminates desire, but it helps.
This bright line uncoupled me from the material world during a good chunk of my formative years. Sometimes, there was nothing I wanted more than to reach over that line and grab what I thought I needed, but in hindsight I understand what happened. Instead of mindlessly ringing up goods under fluorescent lights during those summers, I was outside, enjoying the invincible bodily machine we get exactly one chance at enjoying: during our youth. I was outside, swatting tennis balls and mosquitoes through the long, thick days of July and August. Running around. Playing pick-up basketball until I couldn’t see well enough to pass the ball, then playing kick the can. Soaking up every last bit of it, not even going inside for water, gulping it from the garden hose instead.
Sometimes I think I should put more stuff on the far side of that bright line. Deny my striving, reaching impulses so I can settle back and enjoy what I have. After all, the siren song of Stuff is potent only in the present, its song never sounds sweet upon remembrance. The thing that makes me most convinced of that is this: when I take a walk through those summers in my mind, all the sharp edges have worn off. No fluorescents or cash registers. It’s just bright light, heat, youth, sweat, all mixed together in a hopelessly lovely jumble of memories.