“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
―Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
Sylvia Plath’s fig tree metaphor in The Bell Jar illustrates the multitude of possibilities in our lives. It's like a sea of endless beings we could have become, the lives we could have lived. Our present life is just one of many probable realities, and this notion has probably nudged us all at some point.
Imagine this: our life as a fig tree. Each branch represents a life we could have lived, a path our life could have diverged onto, a fork in the road. You could have been a painter, an actor, a teacher—anything. But with each turn of the key, you unlocked your current reality.
Take me, for example. As a child—no older than seven—I vividly recall a young boy asking me, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I remember standing on the terrace of my eldest aunt’s maternal house, watching the sky dotted with a menagerie of colorful kites, dancing amidst the fluffy clouds.
I thought for a moment—yes, my younger self took time to think about her future aspirations. A kid who didn’t know anything about the real world, preoccupied with playing with her brother and having fun. What did I know about jobs, responsibilities, or adulting? Nothing. But I said brightly with the exuberance only an innocent child has, “A doctor. I want to be a doctor.”
That spur-of-the-moment, not-at-all-thought-out dream job I shared with an almost stranger would define the next decade of my life. I would always firmly state to everyone that I will be a doctor. Even my extended family members I had met only a handful of times knew.
In retrospect, it is amazing how strongly we cling to an abstract idea when clearly we don’t possess the mental facility to understand it. We grow into a whole new person, but we still cling to the parts of the person we were once. Detaching from a past identity is a struggle.
It’s the same with a crush you have—the kind you admire from a distance. The only information available to you is their face, perhaps their name, and the mere shining blob of their existence. You are mostly unaware of their other defining qualities. They exist, and you want them. You build up a castle of daydreams, putting them on a pedestal.
Until you get a peek inside a window of their life. The facade falls away, and it’s unlike the ideal you’d previously nurtured in the garden of your mind. It’s as if someone bombarded your palace of glass with boulders, and you’re lying amidst the broken shards of your idealization.
Perhaps it was the thrill of not having them that had sustained your obsession. You outgrow those feelings; with each turn of the calendar page, you become a completely different person.
That’s how I felt when I was on the cusp of adulthood, a pivotal point in my life. I had to choose what to study next, and I couldn’t come to terms with this simple fact that I didn’t want to be a doctor anymore, or the current circumstances didn’t allow for that.
But detaching from the vines of a dead dream was a long battle. It didn’t fill me with delight but sheer dread. It only held me back and its thorns were slowly injecting poison of regret into me. Regret is one of the worst things in life, this is what I have learned.
I still wonder from time to time what could have become of me if I had ventured down that path. Would I have made it or failed in an epic manner?
That’s the irony of life—you can never win against the demons in your mind. When I read Plath’s metaphor, it hit me hard. I, too, have sat beneath the fig tree, starving from indecision, watching the figs of my life wrinkle and fall.
I also wonder a lot, wondering is what I do. This is obscenely unhealthy. But wondering is human, I believe.
I feel unmoored even now. At times, I can’t see the end of the tunnel, and there is no light. I often feel as though I’m moving through life, shrouded in darkness. But do we ever truly know what’s at the end of the tunnel?
I find my way out of one tunnel, only for life to haul me into another. Life feels like a series of interconnected dark tunnels. Yet, the darkness isn’t always frightening; sometimes, it’s thrilling. The end is a beckoning force, a magnet pulling me forward. I’m just a piece of metal drawn toward the light, eager to see what lies beyond the shadows.
Other times, I feel content. Every bone in my body hums with peace. This is where I was meant to be, and I’ve arrived. The universe placed me here, and it couldn’t have turned out better.
Life is what you make of it. When you feel like berating your past self for making the choices that landed your present self in your current reality, take a moment and ponder. Could you have really acted differently, given the circumstances and your breadth of knowledge and wisdom at the time? Your past mistakes needed to be made because most lessons aren’t learned unless you have been put through a test. I know we all hate infernal tests, but life throws uneven edges at you, and you have to do what you can with what you have.
Your younger self did her best. Don’t be hard on her, or on your present self. You can’t grow with thorns at your side—pluck them. Only then can your past wounds heal, and you can grow. Rip out the vines that are crushing you; it will hurt, but you will be better for it.
Regretting, wondering, and wishing—they are the bane of your existence. They never alter the fabric of your current reality. Only your present self can do it, especially a healed present self. Accept it. Growth comes from acceptance of all that was lost and planting new seeds. You can’t plant dead ones, can you?
Choose your fig, grab it. Throw away the dead fig. Don’t spend your life wondering.