Finding Door C

When you’ve lived with an academic, particularly one who is interested in philosophy, rhetoric, and communication, you‘ve spent a lot of time sitting around, chatting, and luxuriating in the exploration of ideas.

Sometimes, the discussion was about language, debating the utility of the Oxford comma or the avoidance of prepositions at the end of a sentence (‘This is the type of English with which I will not put up’ was a common phrase we liked to deploy jokingly around the house). Sometimes, the discussion was about practical matters like relationships or parenting. Sometimes, the conversation straddled the line between practical and intellectual, like an exploration of the ethical struggles associated with living a good life in a complicated world.

And while, admittedly, a lot of the talk was just talk for the sake of talking, Chelsea and I did occasionally stumble upon some interesting life principles that we tried to utilize (‘you get it when I get it,’ was one; ‘It’s never the thing; it’s the thing the thing represents,’ was another).

One such principle involved the concept of ‘finding door C.’ The basic idea was this: very often, choices between door A and door B turn out to be overly simplistic choices that present a narrow view of the issue. Cultural forces trick us into thinking that the only way to be happy is to get married, have kids, and buy a house (door A in this case is doing it and being happy; door B, not doing it being unhappy). But it turns out that if you explore the issue and go below the surface level, door A/B dynamic, you can be creative in how you approach the issue, often finding a third (or fourth) option in the solution space.

Obviously, there are many ways to live a good life that don’t involve marriage, kids, or home ownership, but it takes both exposure to alternatives and intentional critique of these cultural messages to expand your thinking on the issue.

I remember being 20, going on a Eurorail backpacking experience abroad, and meeting folks from Australia who had sold all their belongings so that they could go on walk-about for a year (they planned to go home and repeat the cycle in a few years). While I didn’t necessarily want to live that sort of life (Chelsea had nomadic tendencies; I’ve always preferred establishing a solid home base and traveling outward from there), exposure to that alternative life style blew my mind and imbued some critical capacity into my own, internal conversation around how best to live my life. I’d like to think that the ‘door C’ option in this case is the idea of trying to live abroad for a year or two while my daughter is still young, so that she can get that sort of cultural exposure during key, developmental years.

Another example from Chelsea’s childhood: she often told the story of her parents’ opinion that she’d be happy if she were in a two doctor family, which she took to mean that she needed to go to medical school and, along the way, find another doctor with which to shack up for the rest of her life. While her parents may have made that comment in jest, Chelsea really took it to heart, and struggled immensely through college with conversations around her career path and broader life choices. Again, Door A was ‘be a doctor and be happy’, Door B was, ‘don’t be a doctor and be miserable.’

Of course, with time, she and I found a Door C option; we both got our PhDs in arguably the least lucrative fields (hers in English, mine in Education) and devoted our professional lives to learning, teaching, scholarship, and service. We ultimately were a two doctor family, just not in the way we originally conceived of the idea, and while we lacked the financial resources we could have had as MDs, we discovered an intellectual vibrancy and depth of experience through teaching and service that we may not have had had we gone down the medical route.

It’s probably reasonable to ask, at this point, why I’m writing this piece at this moment in time.

As I alluded to a few months back, I’ve been struggling in my current situation and have felt quite disoriented by a mix of signals that, one day, tell me to stay on my current course but on the next, seem to imply that I need to make a change. So if door A means staying the course, door B means making a change, and both doors seem wrong, is there a door C option out there that might be present a viable alternative?

In reflecting back on precisely how I’ve been able to find door C in the past, I have to admit that the process of ‘finding’ was a byproduct of timing, luck, reflection, and patience. It took Chelsea and I a while to figure out our professional journeys, and we sat with our insecurities for a long time while explored our options and hashed out a plan. I didn’t immediately meet those Aussies in Europe when I was 20 and have a eureka moment about how I was going to live my life for the next two decades. I think in both cases, keeping an open mind, making a conscious effort to explore alternatives, and focusing on continuous learning probably was part of the formula for finding new pathways.

So that’s probably a good place for me to start as I ponder what’s next. And while I have been trying to engage in continuous learning, I probably haven’t been doing as much work to explore possible alternatives as I could be, and maybe that’s the area of focus moving forward. To be fair, I’ve had a lot on my plate and have been landlocked by both COVID and grief, so getting out in the world, traveling, and exploring have not been high on the priority list. But it might be worth renewing my commitment to that exploration of alternatives and coming up with a specific plan for actualizing that commitment (I’d imagine the plan I used in my 20’s is different from the plan I need to use today in my mid-40’s).

I’ll report back if/when I’m able to find a door C for my current predicament…