Earning Choices
Mickey Levitan
When David’s note arrived, I thought to share a short essay written alongside students in a class I taught. The assignment was a one-pager capturing a pearl of learned wisdom that may be of use to others. As you will see, the pearl I chose applies equally to younger students and those of our generation. Classmates I have been in touch with have cultured this pearl in their own lives and in advice to those coming up.
A pearl of found wisdom serves when counseling with family and friends, young and less young: “if you earn anything in life, it is choices.”
As an idealistic Peace Corps volunteer living in a remote village with no running water or electricity, where drought reduced many to one meager meal a day, I questioned a prosperous villager who bought a kerosene-powered refrigerator. Surrounded by abject poverty, what values undergirded such a choice? Where was the justice when other people’s children were suffering?
Visiting this elder, my ethical quandary didn’t stop me from enjoying my first cold drink in months. The meat served for lunch was in better shape than the usual fly-infested fare stored in sweltering heat.
Refrigerators became my foil for spiraling questions about equity, fairness, and social justice. While I had given up refrigeration to serve, access was a given where I was raised. Who was I to judge? Months later I found an exit ramp from endless laps of recrimination – stop chasing the perceived injustice tail and redouble effort to enable more people to purchase a refrigerator if they so choose. Capacity to buy a fridge became metaphorical shorthand for wherewithal to realize aspirations, whether material, emotional, or spiritual.
I have learned that the choices we gain are a mix of serendipity and individual effort. A child growing up with love, education, and adequate health care is gifted with foundational choices. For my Senegalese brothers and sisters with no access to formal education, farming prospects dimmed by environmental degradation and overcrowding left few options. Before we brought measles vaccines to the village, they lost siblings to an easily avoided scourge. Karma did not bless them with the unearned choices that serve as a springboard for fortunate kids like me.
Whatever the baseline, however misfortune curtails prospects, efforts generate choices. How hard to try in school? How much love to spread with family and friends? What initiative and diligence to apply in professional pursuits? How much effort in forming abiding bonds with colleagues? How much focus on nurturing personal equilibrium? How much prudence to create savings for later years?
With younger folks, the conversation is about leaving a trail of excellence through whatever they choose to do. About picking experiences that optimize learning and contribution. About accumulating the kind of resources that, as the philosopher Vitruvius said, “can swim with us even out of a shipwreck.” About amassing experiences that open doors we hope to walk through. About virtuous cycles we start with caring and loyalty. More effort, more choices.
With older folks who have done well in their professional lives and created a financial cushion, the conversation is about balancing in a way that was beyond reach in earlier phases – family, work, health, inquiry, adventure, service. With prior challenges handled, what remains is to proactively dial in the right mix.
No matter their starting point, I get vicarious joy from family, friends, and colleagues whose efforts yield abundant choices. When one choice is to help others to attain the refrigerators they seek, the world is a little better off.