I Have a Weed Problem
Not the kind you're thinking
For the last week, I’ve spent hours each day in my yard, pulling weeds. It turns out I have a diversity of weeds, and that some of them are native plants, so a part of me thinks, who am I to be ousting them from their natural homes?
The other part of me wants a yard that is neat, contained, and free of burrs that might get stuck in my dog’s coat.
Right now, it feels about as efficacious as digging a hole at the edge of a tide.
Of course, while engaged in this Sisyphean exercise, I have had plenty of time to think about its metaphorical significance (And, if you’re wondering if I can just be a woman pulling plants out of a yard for one second of her life, the answer is no).
The Fallacy of Getting Everything You Want
Incidentally, as I was pulling weeds, I ended up having a conversation with my friend about “wanting.”
We were talking about it in a professional sense: wanting a certain kind of job, or a certain level of success, and there’s definitely something to be said for the art of striving and manifesting and being intentional, but to me it also begs the questions,
How valuable is it actually to “get what you want?” Does any single person in the world feel like they have achieved this?
Buddhists and non Buddhists alike can surely recognize that desire is the root of suffering, and wanting something specific out of life that may or may not be achievable is probably a logical extension of this.
It seems that the more we recognize the world as chaotic and unstable, the more we want to control our outcomes. Maybe the two are mutually constitutive. I don’t know, but I do know that getting everything you want in an ever-changing and growing complex universe feels like climbing a treadmill with the hope of eventually getting to outer space.
So, should I not want anything?
When I was 20, I really thought I would have published a book and have “made it” as a writer by now. It is laughable to me how much confidence I had that this outcome would be certain and achievable! Alas! Time is humbling.
I remember reading a quote a few years ago from author Lorrie Moore that has haunted me since. It was something to the effect of, “When I was in my 20s, I planned on seeing if I had made it a writer by age 30, and if I hadn’t, I was going to consider my writing a failure and do something else.”
As I am mere weeks away from this deadline now, preparing my second manuscript to be sent out with the hopes of publishing it, this quote feels like a death knell sounding in the halls of my ego.
At the same time, I’m not Lorrie Moore, and therefore I do not need to adopt her metrics of success (although I will remain a superfan of her writing!)
And while I haven’t been able to let go of the “wanting” completely, I have gained some perspective in the last few years on what it would really mean for me to get what I want, or what I think I want.
Because that’s the thing: wanting seems to come with a money-back guarantee. Once you have whatever you desire, peace will reign unfettered.
But when you read the fine print on this warranty, it begins to look more suspicious. Will publishing a book really change my life? I will be able to say to people at parties, I have published a book! And I will reap the reward of such interactions (People falling on their hands and knees and applauding this success). I may be able to teach at a university, and I may have a better chance of publishing more books.
But none of these outcomes, sadly, are guaranteed, and neither is my becoming a completely satisfied person.
In fact, when I project myself into the future of getting what I think I want, I realize my life will not be that different than what it is now, and I already have a lot— way more than most people in the history of the world, and in many ways, way more than my 20-year-old self could have ever dreamed of. So, there.
The Endgame of Wanting
Unfortunately, because I am human (or maybe just because I was raised in a certain culture), the cycle of wanting continues. I want a lot of things I can’t immediately (or perhaps ever) have: my own published book, a time machine, no anxiety, fluency in several languages, to have traveled all the places I want to travel.
I want no weeds in my yard!!
But, even in a world with no weeds, I know I would just find something else to fixate on. I would replace the want before I even recognized its absence.
I can’t make desire go away completely, but what I can do is sit outside and appreciate the unkempt yard in all its springtime splendor. The birds and the bees certainly don’t care that the type of plants they are utilizing are not the exact type of plants I want them to be utilizing.
When I think about the character of my most obsessive craving self, it feels like the spirit of Gollum, or like I’m clinging to a rock in outer space, hoping desperately I will be able to not let go.
But what if I did? I try to ask myself in these moments. What’s the worst that could happen?