I want my medal

Walking along with this [doll] Phaedrus felt as if the two of them were sharing this experience, as though he were back in childhood again and this were some imaginary companion. Little children talk to dolls and grown-up adults talk to idols. He supposed that a doll allows a child to pretend he's a parent while an idol allows a parent to pretend he's a child.

He reflected on this for a while and then his mind framed a question: ... he asked the idol [doll], "... What would you say to all this [everything that has happened in the story up till then]?"

He listened for a long time .... Then after a while into his thoughts came a voice that did not seem to be his own.

"All this is a happy ending." ....

"Then why do I feel so bad about it?" Phaedrus asked.

"You're just waiting for your medal," the idol [doll] answered. "You think maybe they're going to turn around and come back and hand you a citation for merit."

Excerpted from Lila: An Inquiry into Morals, by Robert M. Pirsig, pp. 402-403
__________

This passage popped into my head while I was fixing dinner tonight. I was thinking about all the craziness I have endured from Wife over the years -- some stories I have told you, and many stories I have never gotten around to telling. I was thinking about the turns my life has made because I was married to her, and how it could have gone in such very different directions if I hadn't been. And I reminded myself that I made all these decisions on purpose: marrying her because I sensed there was something I needed in my life that maybe I could get from her, and because she so plainly needed the love and stability I thought I could give her; and then sticking with her because it was the right thing to do, because in marrying her I had made a moral commitment. Did I know that choosing this meant giving up that? ... in this case, that choosing to stay with her meant giving up a career where I know I could have shone (scholarship) and (maybe, just maybe) a more invigorating, more mobile life? Sure I did; to a greater or lesser extent, at any rate. But that's what a moral commitment means, isn't it? If something is right, then you give up other things to stick to it and count yourself lucky to do so. After all, the things you are giving up are less important, less valuable, than doing what's right. Isn't that how it is supposed to be? Isn't that what we always hear?

And I suppose in a sense it is even true. Spend long enough at any hard job, and you will get something out of it through the sheer discipline of coming back again day after day and working at it. My marriage has been no different. Sure, I have learned things I wouldn't have learned otherwise. Sure it has shaped me ... "built character" as the saying has it.

Only, sometimes I wish someone were going to come along and give me a medal for it. Because there are these moments of doubt, when I think, "Throwing your life away on something worthless may build character, but in the end the struggle is still worthless. Is this what you have done?" If God were watching, and if I could be sure that in the end He was going to give me a medal for hanging in there all those years, it would make it easier to be calm about it all in retrospect.

Of course, I know this is absolutely the wrong attitude to take. In the first place there is nothing I can do about the past anyway, so fretting over what might have been is a complete waste of time. In the second place, I know that the healthiest thing for the soul is to cultivate an entirely different sort of attitude. Whatever comes next -- whether that means tomorrow (in this world), or a lifetime from now (in the next) -- the best way to face it is with a soul that is free, calm, attentive, and curious, one that looks forward with hope and not backward with despair. Disappointment, anger, bitterness over the past, ... all of these things are snares. They weaken the soul, make it less healthy and less able to deal with new situations when they arise. So whether there is another life or world beyond this one -- or not! -- it is completely counterproductive to obsess over what happened back then that I cannot change. Better far to shake free of all that baggage and look ahead. That's the real reason forgiveness is so important. It's not just that is important to those who wronged you, because it lets them off the hook. But far more is it important to you yourself, because letting them off the hook also unhooks you. Without forgiveness, you are trapped by all the anger and bitterness you feel towards them. Without forgiveness, you can't forget. Without forgiveness, you carry around a bigger and bigger past wherever you go. And the bigger your past, the less room you have for a future. So without forgiveness, you close off your own access to a future of freedom -- a future whose shape you can never know till you get there, a future you can never enter unless you are willing to adapt to new ways and new things, a future you can never enter without looking forward in hope and curiosity. I already know all this. I already know I should simply abandon what has failed in the past, and press forward.

I still want my medal.