In a Parallel Universe, I'm Not as Fulfilled

 

Picking up on my previous post, I was telling Amy about the good time I had at the Wharton dinner I attended where we were able to celebrate the impact of our college advisor Dr. William Whitney. I told her that but for the time he made for me when I did my campus visit my senior year in high school, I would not have come to Penn, which meant I would not have met Amy or done any of the things I’ve done in my personal and professional life in Philadelphia. Rather, I would have gone to Berkeley, hung out with my high school friends, and probably stayed in the Bay Area near my parents. 

Amy and I have been married for over 25 years, and like many couples who’ve been lucky enough to be together so long, we have been through, individually and as a couple, some major ups and downs. She let me finish sharing and then, in response to my wondering about an alternate universe in which I go to Berkeley and stay in California, she said, “that would’ve been a good life and probably an easier life than you currently have.” And she’s probably right. Philadelphia, our marriage, and my career pursuits, are metaphorically far away from the life I imagined when I was a teenager growing up in sheltered suburban Northern California. 

I agreed with her statement, but was quick to reply, “but it wouldn’t have been as satisfying a life.” Aside from the surface ways in which I live a charmed life, I think there’s something profound about a life path that unlocks parts of you that you didn’t even know were there or were important. Maybe any marriage involves uncharted waters, but Amy and my journey has truly been a wild ride that I could not have anticipated, asked for, or wanted when I was younger, but cannot possibly fathom living without now that I have gone this route. Similarly, any location and career will have its surprises, but who knew I would fall so madly for Philadelphia and for cities, when I had had such limited exposure to anything like it during my childhood. 

As a person of faith, I believe deeply in a God who knows and loves us in ways we can hardly grasp, one manifestation of that being the preparation of a path, and of the person for the path, that leads to great enrichment. Importantly, my faith framework acknowledges and even embraces the existence of suffering and pain and loss in that rewarding journey, which perhaps I could’ve avoided had I taken a different path but then I would be found lacking as a result. 

As a society, we are becoming bloated and insufferable. It is easy to wish for a parallel universe in which something is different about our lives – we have more money or power or good looks or popularity, for example – rather than be profoundly grateful for the universe we do inhabit, warts and all. I am not above wishing for more or better or different. So it was heartening that, when considering how close I was to going somewhere besides Penn when I was 18, my main thought was gratitude for the path that I did take, a path that has not been without its heartache and devastation and hardship, but one in which I have been richly blessed, including in activating parts of me that I now cannot fathom being without. Which makes me a lucky guy.