The Fan

VI.
The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
    Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
    Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
    Is very like a fan!"

The last few years of high school are usually an important time for people. I mean, all the years of schooling that you have are important in the sense that you're always learning, but it's in your high school years that you are presented with choices that will determine the outcome of your life. There are so many decisions and influences blowing you this way or that to the point where it's not always easy to see which choices will lead you down a path that will have a good ending.

I think one of the things that makes the process so particularly daunting is what they call in economics "opportunity cost." There is always an awareness that for any action you choose to make in life, there is a side-effect of closing off numerous other choices you could have made, but are now lost to you. If I take this class, I won't be able to take that class. If I join this club, I won't have the time to participate in that club. If I pursue a romantic relationship with this person, then I can't reasonably pursue one with any of a handful of others who might have been possibilities. In fictional settings, people have the luxury of exploring any path they want the plot to take, and if they don't like it, they can backtrack and make different choices to rewrite the story, but real life doesn't work like that.

Of course the real problem with opportunity cost in life is that the more you think about the plethora of options that you could have chosen in life but didn't and all the possibilities of experiences, relationships, and knowledge you could have experienced as a result of them, each and every choice you have to make in life can seem to be burdened with an immense weight of possibility and regret. Sometimes, given the emotional impact of our more intimate relationships, I think that people can get bogged down in worry that they may have chosen the wrong person, or even that choosing the right person was denied them by a twist of fate.

I think I've heard it talked about in countless movies and books that there might exist for every individual a particular, specific person who is their "soulmate" and a great deal of life's energies should be devoted to finding this person. Sometimes there is a worry that in a world of six billion people, your chances of finding that soulmate are so slim as to be a virtual zero probability. And sometimes there is a worry that one may have already met one's soulmate, but missed the chance to connect.

This can be traumatic for a lot of people, obviously. I think many people have a mental picture of what their perfect mate would be like, and they lament, "I will never meet her/him." never realizing the futility of mourning the loss of a relationship that never existed. Not that I would say that it's wrong to dream! And it's certainly not wrong to have, well, "standards" I guess you'd say, as to what sort of people you're seeking for a relationship; everybody needs to have an idea of what would make for a compatible companion. The problem would be the assumption of such a narrow definition of possibility that nobody in reality could possibly fit a role that has been custom-made to be filled by a fictitious persona.

Life is obviously going to be tricky, and there are going to be difficult decisions that don't work out for the best. Not so long ago, I had a boyfriend, and, well things didn't work out in the end. When I look back, though, I don't regret it. I had a fun time while it lasted, and even though there are a lot of things about the relationship that I don't fully understand, like every decision in life, it was a learning experience. If we were meant to be together, then it seems reasonable that we'll somehow get together again. If not, then what's the use belaboring it? You'd have to be crazy to think that there was some sort of conspiracy plotting against your personal happiness.

Yes, the decisions that we make can often be wrong. They can often hurt the people around us, or even be self-destructive. In the end though, a person can't make up for these mistakes by agonizing over every decision and lamenting at what was lost instead of trying to see what was gained. The healthy thing to do is keep moving forward, deal with reality, and let go of what could have been.