20
Drum: ENTERPRISE
maybe you don’t — but don’t you? There are only
so many things you don’t mind getting up at 5 am
to do. There are only so many talents that come to
you as easily as breath. Understand this. There is
something so challenging/exhilarating/promising
about the possibility of experiencing/enjoying/
employing your talents for all they’re worth. Even
if it turns out that, your writing is not worth
$100,000 year; even if it turns out that, your cooking
is not worth $100 — perhaps it’ll turn out that your
own sense of fulfillment is worth so much more.
Or perhaps I’m being idealistic? I offer no concrete
alternatives to the professions I’ve critiqued, not
least because I struggle each day to find them. It is
Rainer M. Rilke can tell you far more than me
about living a life in the name of your forte. I’ve
conjoined a few of his passages, replacing with
brackets ([ ]) the words write and writer. Put in
those brackets whatever it is you believe/fear to
admit you are called to do. If it is acting, insert ‘act’;
if it is ‘working with children,’ add that. Then take
these words (amended for you) and confront that
weighty question: ‘What do you want to do after
you graduate?’
You may find, as Adlai Stevenson said, that you
stand on the verge of great decisions—not easy
ones.
“Your fulfillment has less to do with your career choice than with
the (true) motive behind it. If you don’t know where you’re going,
let your passions point the way.”
a woman — young, poor, passionate — who
pens these pearly things to you; who claims your
fulfillment has less to do with your career choice
than with the (true) motive behind it. If you don’t
know where you’re going, let your passions point
the way. If you cannot answer,‘What are you doing
next year?’ perhaps you might start with ‘What
makes me happy?’ Your apprehensions may become
immaterial in the face of the fulfillment this answer
can bring.
Rilke writes:
I know no advice for you save this: to go into
yourself and test the deeps in which your life takes
rise; at its source, you will find the answer to the
question whether you must [ ]. Accept it, just as it
sounds, without inquiring into it. Perhaps it will turn
out that you are called to be a [ ]. Then take that
destiny upon yourself and bear it, its burden and its
greatness, without ever asking what recompense
might come from the outside .
Last week I ended my marriage of convenience with
Corporate Glory to pursue a long-term love affair
with Art. A friend, apprised of the divorce, left
Letters to a Young Poet outside my door. He inscribed the inside cover with this: “I know you
have elected to create, as most do not, and for such
I know no truer lines.” Leaving off questions of age
and entitlement (what, in the end, has one twentysomething-year-old to say to another?) I want to
compel you young and drifting to pursue as
professions your personal passions.
Nobody can counsel you, nobody. There is only one
single way . . . Search for the reason that bids you [
]. This above all: ask yourself in the stillest hour of
your night: must I [ ]? Delve into yourself for a deep
answer. And if the answer should be affirmative, if
you may meet this earnest question with a strong
and simple, “I must,” then build your life according
to this necessity.