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As a present for my birthday, my long-time friend and former college roommate made me a music playlist called "50." It opens with French chanteuse Edith Piaf singing "Je Ne Regrette Rien."
And I don't, really, regret anything. Which seems fairly miraculous given that I also never had a plan. For half a century, I've been winging it.
As a member of an angst-filled generation of women who are supposed to have fretted since their college days about when and whether to marry, have children, pursue a career, and dye their hair, it occurred to me that I must have done something very right or very wrong to reach my golden jubilee with no regrets. I spent some time trying to determine which it was, thinking there might be a best-seller and an interview with Oprah in it.
After weeks of brutally honest self-analysis and utterly unscientific online research, however, I have come to the conclusion that my life choices--my own volition--have absolutely rien to do with it. I achieved my regretless state purely by luck and instinct. Nevertheless, I have managed to identify a few of the secrets to my accidental success, which I will share so that you too may benefit by ignoring them.
1. Choice isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Coming of age post-Friedan, I had many more options for directing my life than did the women of my mother's generation. I could bring home the bacon as well as cook it. I could be a nuclear physicist as well as a wife, a mother as well as a Justice of the Supreme Court. (Back in the 70s, some of us even thought a woman could be President of the United States.)
The catch, of course, was that no single person--not even a single male person--could do all those things simultaneously. One had to make choices. And every choice in favor of one option involved shutting doors in the faces of countless other enticing possibilities. As Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice explains: "One of the 'costs' of making a selection is losing the opportunities that different options would have afforded. The more alternatives there are, the deeper our sense of loss will be and the less satisfaction we will derive from our ultimate decision."
Studies of the psychology of decision-making show that expanded choice imposes other costs on decision-makers as well. Making choices consumes precious time that might be better spent actually doing something that you didn't choose to do. For example, rather than spending hours prioritizing your to-do list, trying to make the best choice about how to use your time, it might be more productive to just do the first thing (or even the most appealing thing) on the list. Plus, the more time you invest in trying to make the best choice, the greater the chance that you will make a choice that you will later (gulp) regret.
In a graduation address at Swarthmore College last spring, Schwartz counseled emerging graduates to "Learn that 'good enough' is good enough. You may end up with results of decisions that are slightly less good, but you'll feel much better about them. And you'll save yourself a great deal of time, worry, and stress in the process of choosing."
Looking back over my life, it seems to me that I devoted precious little time to the process of choosing. In college, I studied what interested me. When my father asked me what English majors do for a living, I didn't have a clue, but I fell into a corporate writing job--the first and only position I ever interviewed for. When I tired of the corporation, I went freelance. When I tired of dating, I married. And when I discovered, much to my own surprise, that I wanted to be a mother, I started having babies. Not working when they were small was never a choice; we needed my income. When they were old enough for me to think about my own interests again, I applied to one graduate program. In June I'll graduate from Bennington with an MFA in poetry. I will also graduate from my marriage of 24 years--not my choice, but, well, you get the picture.
2. Self-actualization is not a permanent state.
"I think I'm self-actualizing!" I told the jugglezine editor six months ago, when we were first discussing the essay you're reading now. I took her raised eyebrows and her "I don't believe I've ever met a self-actualized person before" as a sign of awe rather than skepticism.
For those of you who need a quick Psych 101 refresher, psychologist Abraham Maslow's theory of motivation is built on a "hierarchy of needs," graphically depicted as a pyramid in which the broad foundation is composed of survival needs like food and shelter, the middle range represents social needs like love and esteem, and the pinnacle is a need called "self-actualization," which is supposed to emerge only after the baser needs have been satisfied.
Maslow posits that each of us has a variety of hidden talents and competencies that we could develop once they are "actualized"--made actual, brought to the surface. Self-actualizing people are people in the process of becoming all they can be, of fulfilling the potential that their third-grade teachers insisted they were not living up to.
What Maslow doesn't tell you, at least not explicitly, is that it is possible to self-actualize oneself right out of a job or a marriage or even an entire community. One day you're teetering exhilaratingly on a summit where you can see for miles in all directions, the next you're skidding down the pyramid's steep and slippery slopes back into worries about how to make the mortgage payment.
It happened to me, gentle reader. But I am here to tell you that the second ascent is easier than the first, because self-actualization teaches you that the only choice you really have to worry about--Maslow called it the "primal choice"--is between your own inner voice and the opinions of other people.
Sorry if you don't agree with my choice.
3. Life and liberty are worthy goals, but the pursuit of happiness is a wild goose chase.
I'll give it to you straight: humans are biologically incapable of sustaining pleasure; any quest for lasting happiness is doomed from the beginning.
Pleasure is what evolutionary psychologists call a survival mechanism--it is nature's reward for doing things that ensure the propagation of the the species. Our bodies need food to survive; eating gives us pleasure. But the pleasure is of necessity only temporary. If it didn't fade, we wouldn't be motivated to eat again, and one good meal would have been the end of an entire species.
Understanding the fleeting nature of pleasure can actually be reassuring to us latter day homo sapiens. If lasting happiness is not an achievable state, we are off the hook. If no single choice or sequence of choices can possibly result in a state of unmitigated bliss, we're free to live uncharted lives, to self-actualize for all we're worth, without worrying about whether we're on the "right" path.
Give it a try. You won't regret it.
Debra Wierenga self-actualizes in Western Michigan.
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Reactions to "The Virtues of Winging It"
I try to limit the choices I give my children. When they have too many they get confused and start thinking so much about the choice if its the right one the best one the smartest one. Human instinct is unmistakeable.
It is liberating to your spirit when you realize that all of the choices are completely irrelevant. Thinking too much about what's next makes you static.
There are an infinite number of outcomes for every choice and is our actions in the face of uncertainty that is life.
A wing and a prayer is all I need. This is a thought provoking ezine for a furniture site.
Rego Plesset
Owner,, Ocean Sales
As far as I know, nobody can explain all this better than the Indian thinker Jiddhu Krishnamurti. The way he explains "moving into the unknown" is so clear, so precise. Aside from projects, in life to chart a course is not to live at all. It is like charting a course to God, it implies you know what to look for. It is foolish business. Since everything we know (knowledge that is) is based on our past, anything we chart is thus based on our past pattern or conditioning. It is like living in the past I guess. To truly live, we need to move into the unknown.
With regards to action, the Taoists say in doing nothing, you accomplish everything.
After I stopped gropping, seeking, wanting, I experienced such a relief. Now, I just live for today with a minimum of financial planning for the future. I simply don't think too much about life that is all.
Jun
No body special
Thanks beyond thanks. As my 18-year-old, college bound son has said, sometimes thank you seems so inadequate to express the genuine emotion of surrender to the moment something makes sense in our lives. In this moment, I thank you as someone who has also spent a lifetime of winging it. I sat today on the verge of insanity after 4 tedious, exhausting months of unemployment, all funds exhausted, including the creative choices, and I wondered when will I find the right livelihood and will that be before I lose my home? I had been brutalizing myself all morning and stumbled on this article with gratitude.
STARR
MOM, none
In reading this artical I was reminded of an argument I had with my dad when I was around 22. I had been married since I was 17 and had two small daughters He wanted me to make some choices that would make my life easier. I was adamant that I wanted to take the curving road not the straight one. I knew that if I travelled the straight path I would be missing out on some surprising experiences. Despite the bad choices along the way, most were wonderful and surprising. They took me places physically and emotionally that I would not have made a concious choice to go. What I have learned in my 53 years is even if you spend days agonizing over a decision, it doesn't guarantee you will make the right or best choice. So don't hesitate. Jump in and enjoy .
Shirley
Florida
Shirley Armstrong
Loved it! I too live without a plan per se other than dedicating myself to my wife when I first got married, to my children when they appeared; vowing to never work long hours and serious advancement until after the kids were on there own. After 20 years I also graduated from my first marriage (not my choice) and after 25 years I couldn't be closer to my 3 sons. Life has been grand without a plan, taking things as they came. I now have a wonderful wife and a business of my own that God granted me on the day my youngest graduated from HS. His timing not mine. My life and my business run much like I rake leaves - I try and get most of it, notice what I miss and leave them there on purpose. Sometimes I don't even spellcheck.
Bruce Fennema
owner, BRUCE'S TRUCK AND AUTO ACCESSORIES
A timeless message, written refreshingly anew by Ms. Wierenga.
As Revaux and Claude Francois wrote in Comme D'Habitude and subsequently sung by Paul Anka, Blue Eyes, Elvis and Johnny Rotten:
"Regrets, I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention....I did it my way!"
Phil Magnan
Mural Guru, Muralistik!
I spent zero time evaluating my two choices; 1.) read Ms. Wierenga's article; or 2.) zip through five additional minutes of billable work. I'm all the more satisfied with my decision, thank you.
Jim Harper, IDSA
Vice President, Corbin Design
I think the author is confusing choice and luck. Remember the old joke about the two maggots who fell off a wagon, one into an empty pipe, the other onto a pile of manure. The first starved while the other grew fat. The first one asked the second, "What's the secret of your success?" "Brains and ingenuity, brother, brains and ingenuity." If Ms. Wierenga's life (apart from her marriage) really did just fall into place whenever she willed it, what lessons are the rest of us supposed to draw, whose choices may have been more limited or had steeper consequences?
hannah
I really enjoy reading the thoughts of people capable of clear thinking and who then take you to a point from which you can see more clearly for yourself. Personally, I have always been too good at too many things and was plagued by the difficulty of choosing paths. I never really wanted to choose a niche and then not be able to see what was going on that well everywhere else. With the perspective Wierenga has provided, I realize I have pretty much always been winging it and, as a result, have had way more fun than most. Wish I had a bigger nest egg though.
Will Chambers
I disagree. I think self-actualization comes only when you have conciously made choices to seek what makes you happy. Whether it is achievable or not, human beings need to feel that there is a purpose to our time on this planet. Finding bliss in this world is irrelevant, what seems crucial to me is that we feel as if we've contributed to positive energy, a better world-as we interpret it, That is how we avoid regret in old age. I have never self-actualized not knowing if I was on the "right path". And often this sense of a better self comes directly from the roles we play, as mother, teacher, lover, mentor, whatever. We choose HOW we want to play those roles. We ARE our choices.
Jane Nichols
Asst. Professor, Western Carolina U.
Best line of the story: "...self-actualization teaches you that the only choice you really have to worry about--Maslow called it the "primal choice"--is between your own inner voice and the opinions of other people."
Michael LeBoeuf
Author
Very thought provoking. I hadn't considered having so many "choices" to be a bad thing before. But, as I consider the vast array of retirement choices, I now realize why I am so reluctant to choose. Maybe I'll just wing it.
The bit about "happiness" is one of my soap box topics. My son was fed a steady diet of "fun" in his K-12 years. This generation of teachers is setting up our children for great disappointment by telling them every assignment is going to be fun! It's just work. They have fun on the playground.
Diane Brandli, ASID
Director of Inteiror Design, Ashley McGraw Architects
Bulls-eye. You gave voice to my inner voice. I am screaming around the track with my emergency brake on smelling the burning rubber with my 50th
waiting for me to slam into it full force.
Winging it has often been my drug of choice. Hanging on for the ride of my life with a big fat grin on my face, contemplating a change in hair color, not killing moments but feeding them, eliminating the life sweats in favor of not taking it all this living stuff too seriously. Loved your take.
Cary Mathews
VP, Business Interiors and environments, inc.
As I am already having a stressful morning, I check my email once more before leaving my office, and here is an enlighting story.
A story that I really already know in my soul but somehow seem to forget during the daily "chaotic" course of business dealings.
Thank you for making me smile, for lowering my blood pressure (ha), and for reminding me of the things I believe in.
Teri Wright
Owner, Liquid & The Lighting Barn
Rapidly approachign 50 myself and recently graduating from a marriage of 26 years -
I have to agree with the theory of the second ascent - it really is easier the second time you reach for the top.
(although I now dye my hair cause I like the color! I did dye for a while because i wanted to hide my age!)
Mary Richards
Thanks for the story, Debra. I've taken an 'independence' career path, preferring to own little companies and do things my way. I didn't like fitting into the corp scheme. But the price has been dear. Lot's of risk, sacrifices, one of them intermitent loneliness, being outside the herd. But I realized there's no use fighting it. It's so forcefully who I am that attempts to be something different return me to that course. So, it seems my best choice is to master it as best I can. Secretly, I doubt it's independence that drives me. More, it seems like a desire to create something new and valued by the community. I'd like to feel I gave something good and useful that endures and makes some meaningful affect. right now, I'd say if there is such a thing it's in my relationship with my 9-yr old -- I've never loved anyone or thing like i do her and that seems to make all the difference in the world. not what I expected when I began the course. I thought it'd be business and money.
cheers
lee
ceo, informed networks corp
Amen to that! I have bobbed along quite nicely, knowing from a rather young age that what happens, happens. There is no sense whatsoever dwelling on the past (even if it was mere seconds ago). You need to constantly adjust to the present reality and deal with things as they are right now, not how they were 10 seconds or 10 years ago, not how you wish they were now. The only question that ever needs an aswer is "What next?" The true measure of a person is how they answer that question every minute of every day.
Bob Marcy
manager, Windsor Wood Service
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