Sometime ago, I wrote an essay in which I pondered my career orientation by looking back at my early childhood. The first thing I recall ever wanting to be was a garbage man, because he rode on the back of a really great truck. A little later, at about age four, I hit on something more enduring. I used to go to the bus stop near the top of the hill to watch my older brother and sister drive off. From there, I could see the Sleeping Giant, a low tree-covered mountain that was also a state park, which sat serenely in the distance, often surrounded by the light of early morning. Although it was only about ten miles away, it seemed like the distant horizon of heaven to me. It was this vision of the hill- as- heaven that made me decide I wanted to be a hobo; that is, I wanted to travel unencumbered to an earthly heaven. In my future, there would be no jobs or family or anything else to tie my wanderlust down, at least not until I reached this unreachable goal.
Not exactly a go-getter personality, and I have almost lived up to that vision – that is, of being a dreamer with no serious occupation. A family finally did tie me down, however, for which both me and my dental health – hobos don’t have money to go to dentists – are grateful. It was important that I learned earthly love, I think, before I could find eternal love in heaven. But still, the verdict is in: the child that was me would not grow into someone who would be written about in the history books or anywhere else.
Millions of others, however, know from early on exactly what useful world-changing or at least world-helping occupations they will have. I have known several artists and doctors and preachers (just one there) and athletes and rich people who have all followed their early dreams with at least some success in this world. Of those, though, I have never met any like those profiled in the Ken Burns series I am now watching about the Presidential Roosevelt's.
Theodore – meaning “loved by God,” although the series rarely delves into his spiritual life - did not know that he would be president, but he had a vision of being great in the eyes of society. Born to a stout and moral father, he wished to be everything that he believed his father was, even though Ted was hampered by asthma, poor eyesight, and an overall weak physique and timid personality. His will, however, was unbelievably strong. He read books about daring explorers and forced himself to be like them until he had genuinely lost all, or nearly all fear. He exercised with a maniacal passion until he became as strong as he could be, and far better, tough and ready for adventure. Adventure he did, and somewhere along the way he determined that politics was one of the greatest of adventures. With his boundless energy coupled to his family connections, he quickly rose to vice Secretary of the Navy, which allowed him to glorify himself on San Juan Hill in the Spanish – American War. As a hero, he became the choice of McKinley in the 1898 presidential election, which he won. Fate would have McKinley die from an assassin’s bullet, leaving Teddy as the earliest president in US history, at 42. From there, he filled much more than his share of the history books.
He did not know he would become president, but he was driven to be great in the eyes of Man. He knew with an absolute certainty that greatness would – must – trail behind him in waves of glory. And he was right. What angels – and devils – he had.
Franklin, on the other hand, knew from the start that he would probably be president, in part because of the example of Cousin Ted. He was a life-long mama’s boy whose mother, and family fortune and name, confirmed in him the sense of his own greatness. His fellow students did not like his airs, either at Groton boarding school or at Harvard, or in the state house in Albany after his first successful foray into politics, but no matter. HE knew he was great. His wife Eleanor’s organizational skills helped, as did his mistresses’ adoring attention (sorry, Franklin, I had to say it). But like his cousin, his destiny was tied to overcoming adversity, although his was much worse than Teddy’s. After riding his luck and name and talent to undersecretary of the Navy, just as his cousin had, he came down with polio, a horrible and permanently disabling disease almost always born by young children. His long and intense suffering, say the historians, taught this son of privilege compassion and endurance, without which he could not have been the president that he was.
Both Roosevelt's knew that they would be great, each in his own way, and each had to suffer and struggle for it in his own way as well. Who plants this seed of greatness? I suspect that many such seeds are planted, but only a few are able or willing to go through the process that is necessary to actually become great – just as many shy away from the rigors of medical school or missionary work or, for that matter, the monotony of accountant training. I suspect that we are called to employ the will that we were given, one way or another, for the task, and that in this our free will is employed. We accept our destiny and the suffering that goes with it or we don’t. This is easy to see in the ones who become great. What must that feel like, that sense of greatness, to a four-year-old?
I will never know. But what about the rest of us schlubs? How about those of us who were given lesser destinies? I believe that each of us knows somewhere, at least by our older age, whether or not he has lived up to his destiny.
I stopped writing at that last sentence on Saturday because of an appointment for a haircut. The last woman we went to retired, so we now go to a young woman in her late 20’s who was recommended to us, and she really is good. She called to have me come in early, and so I found her at the desk ready for me. She is very attractive, although her short sleeves showed far too many tattoos for my taste. She had a “woops,” as she calls it, in high school and is now the mother of twins (!). She lives with her boyfriend – not the father of the twins – who is pushing for marriage and another (his own) child, but she’s not so sure. As she sat me down in the chair above the hair-covered floor, I wondered: is this the life she dreamed of? She was certainly good at it. So I asked her.
“Did you dream of being something when you were really young, like in grammar school?” She hemmed and hawed, so I gave her my example of being a garbage man, and then a hobo. She laughed and then spilled the beans.
“I wanted to be a dentist since first grade. But I don’t know, I’m not made for reading all the books I would have to.”
“So” I said, “is it that you couldn’t do the work or that you just didn’t want to?”
“Oh no” she said defensively, “I could do the work. I just didn’t want to.”
“That’s what I thought. It’s like we know what we should do but it’s a matter of willpower.” I paused, realizing the implications. “Jeez, kinda makes you feel bad, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh well. I couldn’t even succeed at being a hobo.”
Which is true. But being a hobo searching for heaven isn’t a career. In the past it was for a very few, with itinerant monks like Friar Tuck of Robin Hood fame, or eccentrics like Johnny Appleseed, and for a while, naturalist John Muir before he became respectable, but it is not exactly a career category. Make no mistake, I do not think I lived up to my calling, but that calling was never explicit, like being a dentist. And I wonder – what about the rest of us? How many not only have a failure of will, but a failure of insight? It might just be that most of us were meant to do farm work, or industrial work or computer work, depending on the era, while only a few are actually called for something specific. Or it may be that we are all called for something above the ordinary lot, but we either refuse to listen or to take the challenge.
Or it could be that a career isn’t the calling we are given. It could be that we are to be good fathers or mothers, or run food pantries, or write poetry that only a few read, but read well. In the end, I really don’t know.
What is clear, however, is that some are mysteriously called before they even know the meaning of their calling, and they fulfill it with single-minded vigor. Some of them become presidents, some doctors, and some heroes of wars either domestic or international. These lead important lives and sometimes, as with the Roosevelt's, trail streams of glory in their wake. But each calling demands a sacrifice, some nearly impossible to endure. I for one prefer comfort, or at least a life with little anxiety. And it is this, our attitude -the personality of our wills - that finally determines both the challenges we are willing to accept and our rewards. The greatness may have been offered, but it is often left as a half-forgotten dream that comes back to haunt us now and then in moments of quiet clarity that renders the truth of our weakness.