To Julie Powell, the looming prospect of turning 30 felt the end of her world. A life she describes as a highway of mediocrity, peppered with the props for the opening scene in a modern Cindarella movie, complete with a dead-end temp government secretarial job, ailing marriage, and reeking Queens apartment. The despair of middle age became her tipping point, and so driven by the urge to accomplish something worthwhile and memorable, she made the random decision to teach herself to cook.
For her, that meant making all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in 12 short months. Standing over the stove late into the night after a full day day at the office gave her all the material she needed to fill a quirky blog on her pet project. Then one stray afternoon, the New York Times called her to let her know they’d be profiling the blog, which led to a major book deal, and Meryl Streep picking up the lead role in the movie that followed.
Entering the third decade of my life had the cruel opposite effect on me. Expecting to feel the need to be promoted, run a marathon, or buy a convertible, all before my time ran out, I was completely blindsided by my unique side-effects of entering thirty. The urge to do less, slow down, quit my successful and high-paying job, backpack around Asia, go to the movies alone on a weekday morning, doodle my thoughts into a virtual diary, scrapbook, take long winding walks through the alternating grime and icing cake mansions of San Francisco, all overtook me. My life ever since has been a to-do list of not-do’s. This need to stop rushing, uncross my tapping legs, and see my partner’s face over coffee in the sunshine was a surprise that took some getting used to.
Alan finds it unendingingly amusing that I turned thirty, got married, quit my job, heaved a backpack onto my shoulders and started writing it all down in 12 months.
A good friend of mine believes he knows it all. He says that life is simple. You just have to learn the lesson. Once you go and do that, he claims, the problem goes away. My mentor and I pondered this theory over Horlicks (for him) and tea ( for me) the following day. We probed, what if it really is that simple? Find the lesson, accept it, memorise it, put it in action, and then voila, move on. To the next challenge, that is. He encouraged me to explore this theory, as a good mentor does.
If this is a real life strategy, application would stand the test, I continued, and so I applied it to my so-called midlife crisis. What if my to-do was to not-do. Can it really be that simple? Breathe. And wait. A surrendering of sorts. Of the directing role in your life. Still the mind, wharble into numbness. And smile, of course. To the passing crowds.
