“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
I had a revelation today: the reason why I could never make a decision. I love how authors take the most difficult of expressions and convert them to words using relation and wit. Sylvia Plath says it perfectly, “I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest”.
You would not believe how many times I have switched my major, copped out on relationships because I could not decide on personality or attraction, contemplated over which outfit to wear, or what meal to choose from the Olive Garden menu. The reason: I would miss out on all of the rest.
My problem is that i cannot choose just one. I want to taste all feelings, take the role of every character, live everywhere. What is life if you have to choose only one?
There is also that fear lurking in the dark of my mind: what if I choose the wrong one? Robert Frost is a brilliant man, and even he chose the wrong road. Maybe Sylvia Plath also had the same fear. And look what happened to her: she let everything rot.
Musings of a Wallflower 