It’s been a month and a day since my advisor/mentor Stephanie introduced to this gem from Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar:

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.

Today, for what feels like the thousandth time in college, I asked myself (because someone asked me) what I wanted to do after I graduated. I saw the fig on my current branch: consulting, traveling around the country and the world, meeting new people and learning new things. I saw figs on the other side of the tree: a role in Silicon Valley, designing and building the Next Big Thing; running a glorious 2:59:59 marathon time; a happy relationship with someone I loved. I looked up and saw more figs: moving to New Zealand; becoming a college professor; working for an organization that improved the education system or helped promote sustainability; settling down with a family. I looked back down - for the briefest moment - and saw the figs that I had already passed up: awkward first dates, failures and missed opportunities. What would I do?

The only thing I could: climb.