“This isn’t good enough.” They told me. I’d spent all week working on it. I didn’t think it was perfect, I knew myself better than that. But I thought it was at least satisfactory. I’d met all the requirements they’d given me, linked it to everything relevant, and executed the plan as best I could. Afterwards, I even reflected on the plan, made adjustments and noted them down. I’d done everything they asked.
“I understand. What needs to change? What needs to be done better?” I asked. I felt confused, offended this work hadn’t been enough but I was here to learn. I wanted to know more.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to write you up for this. There are certain requirements you have to meet before I can sign off on you and this is a little concerning. I’ll talk with your coordinator and get back to you.” It was the last thing she had said to me.
This was supposed to be my career. I thought I had done well. Thought I had done good. My first practical went off without a hitch. Everyone loved me and I loved what I was doing. This time, everything was a slog. The work. The people. The job. But this was what I wanted. This was what I always wanted. I just needed to know what to do next. I needed to know how to improve.
I spent the entire bus ride home mulling over what I needed to improve upon. I needed to be more prepared, I knew that. Life had gotten in the way as it so often does and I could have been more prepared if not for that. By the same reasoning, my planning could have been better given more time. I need to be more dedicated. This was the only thing that I could focus on.
I spent the evening refining everything I had done before, reading my plans over and over to find the flaws. I kept one file of the old plan and revised everything on a new one. I connected everything more than before, reworded things so they made more sense and were easier to read. I clearly showed how each section met the requirements. By the time I was finished, I’d hoped it would look like an entirely new plan.
It didn’t.
It looked like the same plan, only reworded and reorganized. Sections were moved, explanations were paraphrased, but comparing the two side by side, I easily realized: this is the same. That wasn’t the worse part. I realized all I had done was destroy something which was once personal, something that had me in it, and took out the soul of it. I made it professional. I tailored it to their requirements in order to pass. But doing so required me to remove myself from the equation. If that was the case, was this really the path for me?
If I have to give up who I am for my career, am I really on the right path?
I put my head in my hands as the thought occurred to me. This was the only path I’d ever known. The only path I’d ever taken. My entire life was lived for this purpose. It isn’t the first time I’ve thought about other paths. I’ve had concerns, troubles, roadblocks but I persevered through every one of them. This was what I was meant to do. I had always felt that way.
I stand. I can’t just sit there any longer. I start to pace around my room. My thoughts practically bounce off the walls while my legs carry me in circles around the room. I jump back and forth between deciding this is the career for me and this isn’t the career for me. Besides, I’m so close to finishing it. I should at least do that.
I shouldn’t be thinking like this. I don’t have time to think like this. I should be preparing for next week. There are more things to plan. Always more things to plan. The world does not stop moving just because I’m having a crisis. But if I make any plans, do any work in my condition, I’ll only have to redo it. I’ll just have to end up spending more time on it. No, I need to decide what to do. I need to fix myself first.
Yes, that’s what I’ll do. That’s what I should do. It’s the smart decision. The mature decision. I sit down at my desk, prepare the email letting them know I’ve changed the plan. I request feedback. This will work. This has to work. I proofread the email, make sure the attachments are there. I’m ready to send.
Before I do, I get an email. From them.
I open it, speed read through the email. Then I slowly read through it. I make sure I read every word, every letter correctly. I make sure I understand what they’re telling me. I do.
The title of the email reads: notice of concern.
“So, this is how it happens.” The Fool comments.
I remember it from the previous story. I don’t see the next part of the story yet, but I can tell this is when it happens. This is when he steps off the path.
“And then he loses everything. He hangs himself.” The Fool shakes his head, but I can see the amusement in his voice, see the smile spreading across his lips.
“You’re right. He chooses to be there. It’s his decision. But there’s something else. Something more.” I look up from the reel and scan the darkness for a new reel, a new string to pull. This isn’t the whole story. It’s the next part that’s important.
“He throws away everything he’s been working towards. Throws away years of work and dedication. All because he can’t accept his failure. Can’t accept their criticism. He’s afraid to fail.” She sneers at me, the smile on her lips turning Cheshire. I see a string. I run to it and pull on it. I need to see what happens next. He needs to know.
“Maybe that’s what he learns.” I tell her as the reel starts to move.
When you make a decision, it’s sometimes hard to see how much it will impact your life. Forget decisions you make when you’re emotional, even the ones you make when you’re in a calm state of mind. The things you think will change as a result of your decisions are sometimes as insignificant as a drop of water in an ocean against the real ramifications of that decision.
Hindsight is, after all, 20/20.
When I look back on that decision, I don’t regret it. My life has changed in many ways. Some for the better, some for the worse. I got a real job for the first time. By real, I mean a forty-hour work week job. It wasn’t glamorous, and I wasn’t going anywhere fast. I wasn’t going anywhere. It wasn’t a career. But it was a job. And it provided me with something critical: money. And that money bought me independence. For the first time, I wasn’t shackled to my family.
I used the money to take driving lessons and get my license. While I couldn’t afford a new car in my new line of work, I did take our old family car. It wasn’t anything special; it was almost as old as I was. But it ran. For the first time, I wasn’t shackled to my family’s schedule. I could go out whenever and wherever I wanted. More importantly, I could go places without them knowing. It wasn’t that I wanted to go anywhere scandalous. I just wanted to go places without being questioned.
I was an adult. I could make my own decisions. I didn’t need every choice, every decision to be questioned. I still don’t know if leaving the university was the right or the wrong path. But making that decision, I realized something about it. Whether or not it was right or wrong didn’t matter. I gained something much more valuable than some simple, binary knowledge. I gained a new perspective.
The things I learned here, in this dead-end job, taught me things I never learned in school. The things I learned from these people, these real people, in real jobs, with real lives, taught me more about what it meant to be human than anything in school. No. That’s not entirely true, I realize. They made those things real. The things I learned reading books and poetry in class, the analytical skills I learned in math and science, they became real here.
I learned about someone stuck in a position all their life because it was comfortable. Because it was easy. And it reminded me of myself. Of the path I’d walked down all my life. I learned about an expert in his field. Someone satisfied with the life he chose to lead. I saw myself in him too. In who I might have been. I learned of another, arrogant in who he was, abusing his power to benefit himself. I saw in him who I didn’t want to become. In another, I saw someone who only wanted to be a mother. But had to wait until she could achieve her dream. I admired her. Sacrificing for her dream but more than that, I saw how successful she would be. I saw how amazing of a mother she would be. From her, I learned the type of person I wanted to be.
There were more. So many more people. So many more lives I learned from. Cautionary tales, tales to aspire to, tales of myself. If I had never left the university, never stepped off my path, I wandered if I ever could have seen anything else. Even when my career started, and I met other real people, would I see them the way I see these people? Would I truly learn from them the way I learned from these people?
Thinking of what ifs was useless. I still haven’t learned if that career, if that path is the right one for me. I still question, still doubt. But I don’t regret. The things I have gained from that decision, from that failure, have granted me not knowledge, but wisdom. And that is irreplaceable. Invaluable. It is what I always hoped to gain. But never found until I stepped off the path.
“So predictable.” She says a loud.
“What do you mean?” I ask. She sounds bored, fed up with these stories.
“They all play out so perfectly. The card tells us what the story is about and then plays into everything the card is about. This sacrifice, this failure of the hanged man leads to a new perspective. A valuable new way of looking at the world.” She looks up into the darkness but there’s a dullness in her eyes. A boredom.
I realize, for me, these stories are exciting. Though I might suspect, though I might hope where each story goes, they are still new to me. I learn something from each story. Some of them are heartbreaking, some of them are hopeful, but they all bring something new. What must this be like for the Fool? She already sees the whole picture, sees the whole story and everything that can be learned from it.
Why is she even here?
“A little early for that isn’t it?” The Fool sighs. She looks to me. There’s no smile on her lips, only boredom.
“I suppose it’s time to draw a new card then.” The Fool reaches behind him, I can see the cards in his hands, see him shuffling them, ready to draw a new card but before he can, I look for a new string to pull on.
One stands out amongst the rest. Unlike the red strings or the reels from before, this one is metallic. A wire of some sort. I pull and pull on it but it is even harder than the others. I barely even feel it move as I tug with all my might. The Fool appears behind me.
“What are you doing?” He asks. There’s genuine curiosity. I thought he’d know. Either because he can read my mind or because he just knows.
“Today’s stories are stories of the hanged man. What do you think I’m doing Fool?”
There was once a man who passed through a village. It was not a village of major consequence. It was a village like any other. It did not exist on a well-traveled road, but travelers would pass by. Sometimes out of necessity as night drew close. Other times out of curiosity. The man in question passed by this village merely because he was lost. The man was a bit of a fool and thus often found himself wandering the countryside as he travelled from place to place.
This man was a man of many artistic talents. He preferred the performing arts, theatre, and comedy in particular. He was known, albeit not widely, to write his own scripts and though many once called upon his services, his inability to arrive from place to place became too much a liability. Instead, he became known as the wandering jester. Towns graced, his words, with his presence were given an exquisite, impromptu show.
I tell you this because this was the type of man always embroiled in his work. The man was always thinking up new ideas, new stories, and new jokes to tell. This played a part in his ability to so easily lose his way. You see, whenever this man thought up his ideas, his head and eyes flew to the sky. This was how he best did his thinking.
The day he walked through this village was no different. For reasons he did not understand, he kept bumping into people. Despite what you may think, this was not often an issue for the man. So long as he kept his pace and walked behind people, he often walked without running into people. Buildings and ditches he would run into, but not people. Thus, it came as quite a shock when he kept running into them here.
The man voiced his displeasure quite loudly and frequently. Throughout the entire day, he complained about how slow the villagers walked. If only they would walk faster, he would stop bumping into them! This, he believed, is what led to his current predicament.
The villagers grew sick of this man and complained to the chief. The chief agreed: something must be done. And so, the man was convicted to death by hanging. The man was not at all afraid. This was not a new occurrence for him. His jokes were not always well received and he had found himself convicted to death by many powerful individuals. Lady luck always sided with him, striking away fear from his heart and she did so again this day. Thus, when the villagers led him up the stairs to the platform, he continued on as he always did. His head and eyes in the sky and as he continued bumping into the villagers, would complain loudly about how slow they moved. In fact, he was thinking they would by the subject of his next story!
They slipped the noose around his neck and still, he remained with his eyes to the sky. The village chief droned on and on about something or other. About how this man had gravely offended them and it could not stand. There was only one man to blame and that was him. After all, how could he be so insensitive to them. On and on the village chief went. The man ignored the chief, instead thinking of what great stories he could tell. The pain of walking through a village where everyone walks unbearably slow!
A flip of a lever later and the man was hung.
But that day, just as many others, Lady Luck sided with the man. By a stroke of her intervention, the man found himself hung not by his neck, but by his feet. The villagers were struck by the circumstances of this event and later decided it was fate. They would later release the man on the condition he never return and never speak of this village. The man gratefully agreed and apologized profusely for his harsh words. It was only after being hung he understood.
You see, as the man hung by his feet, his eyes still looked upward. But upward became downward. And so, the man was forced to look at the feet of the people who he had offended. He was forced to look at the people who walked so slowly. In that moment, he understood everything. The reason the villagers walked so slowly and the reason they were so enraged at his anger. They were all missing a leg!
“Ahahahahahaha!” The Fool burst out laughing at the last line of the story. He keeled over, kicking his feet into the air as he laughed harder and harder. Tears tickled his eyes as the laughter overwhelmed him. I kept the story in my hand, waiting for the moment he calmed himself.
“What a story!” She finally said, recollecting herself. “Am I the Fool in that story?”
“I don’t know.” I answer honestly. Despite understanding so much of these stories, there is still so little I know. “But you’re welcome to take it if you’d like.” I offer the pages to the fool. He takes it in his hands, flipping through the pages and laughing again as he reads through them.
“You really did fit everything into this story didn’t you. The hanged man. The new perspective. Even the sacrifice!” The Fool hands the story back to me, smiling gently. “But this is not my story to keep.” I take it in my hands, smile thankfully at the story. It’s not mine to keep either. Yet another thing I somehow understand. I hold the story close to my chest, glad for what it has done. Then let it go.
I watch it fly back up into the darkness. This time, the metal wire fades away with the story.
“I’m looking to what we see next.” The Fool says, a wide, toothy Cheshire grin once again on his face.