Maika Nguyen

I recently came across a paragraph from Sylvia Plath’s novel “The Bell Jar”, which I will put down here.

“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.”

I’m choosing to share this because of how deeply it has impacted me. To sum it up, it talks about the paralyzing fear of having to make a singular choice down your life, leading to so much lost potential. In the novel, Esther Greenwood sees her own future as a tree, where each fig represents a potential life. A career, a family, an adventure. But by trying to choose them all, she’s losing them, causing them to wither.

To think about it, is this not something we occur eventually in our life, at the certain cross point, realising you have no other way to turn. The existential dread of regret. Of all the “what ifs”. Of all the fears of committing to the wrong path.

But here’s the thing, instead of falling to the illusion that you only have to choose one fig, why not challenge that belief, challenge the fact that you are told you can only choose one path for yourself. Personally, I’d like to be a person who tries it all. Nothing has to be absolutely perfect, nothing has to be pristine and polished. I want to look back on my life when I’m 80 and be proud that I’ve taken a bite of every fig. I don’t want someone in my life pressuring me to choose between the fig, and sacrifice something I love for another path.

If something is calling you, it will keep calling, and calling, and calling, until you’ve answered it, and pushing it away does you no good.

Choosing it all, is a choice.

*You* are the tree. Your figs will not rot if you put your heart to it. Your figs will not rot for you are the tree

That’s all I’d like to say. But I’ll leave one last note. The paths you are offered is not your choice. The paths you pave is your choice, and your choice only.

Thanks for reading!

Love, Maika.