The Unlikely Hope In Giving Up

Exploring a reality where hope and disappointment create possibility together through Everything Everywhere All At Once

Jun 01, 2022

Psst: This essay explores the intersection of hope, failure and disappointment through the movie Everything Everywhere All At Once. While the references here are more interpretive than literal, I would hate to spoil or set you up for absolutely anything in this spectacular movie. If you’re able to, skip the trailer and go straight to the theater. In the meantime, head over to this ‘spoiler free’ version of the essay.

I love movies that explore alternate realities. This concept of a constant branching off of our lives with every decision, accounting for every possibility. The idea that a failure for this version of me creates a success for a different version of me. That somewhere, out there, are millions of Tamis living out all of the ‘if onlys’ and ‘what ifs’ I wonder about all the time. It’s kind of comforting, no?

By some estimates, I have had a lot of success in my life. By others, I have failed at everything I’ve tried to do. I don’t think I’m alone in carrying around a measuring stick that is used, universally, for sizing up the current value of our lives, but is scaled specifically in career-defined increments.

And, even though I don’t want a life that is made up entirely of work, or even to put the rest of my life on hold until my careers are where I want them to be, I would be lying if I said my feelings of fulfillment weren’t intimately related to this particular mark of progress.

In this reality, I am starting over. Back to a beginning that doesn’t feel at all new or fresh. One that, in fact, feels all too familiar, if not redundant. But here I am, unpacking my bankers boxes of baggage, conducting an assessment to understand what happened. How did I get here? Where, even, am I? And what can I do differently so it happens differently, this time?

It might sound like problem solving, but really what I am looking for is proof. I want to know that it will be different this time. Not just possible, but probable. My risk tolerance for this next endeavor is low. Like zero to none.

HOPE AS A PROMISE

In the beginning, we are all bright eyes and big imagination. Our minds are a busy factory of possibility, the separation between what is real and what is imaginary is paper thin- if it exists at all. Whether you can point to it or not, it doesn’t matter. If we can see it in our mind, it’s only a matter of time.

If we’re lucky, we hang on to those big ideas and big dreams long enough to do something about it. We get in the car and confidently drive toward the future we imagine for ourselves. We leave a town of 1000 people for a city of 3 million and drive toward the life we know is out there for us, even if we’ve never seen it before. The naysayers and non-believers shrink in the rearview mirror, but we don’t look back. Because we know, they just don’t see what we see. We’ll have to show them.

Her dad said- don’t go. He said- how will you take care of yourself? He said- be realistic. This won’t work. You’ll regret this. You’re making a mistake. He tried to plague her with his doubt, but she didn’t believe him. She turned around. He turned his back on her. She left anyway.

HOPE AS A PLAN

Ten, fifteen, twenty years later we are a million miles, literally and figuratively, from where we started, but we are not where we thought we’d be. And, sure, we know things don’t always go as planned. We expect that, but that doesn’t mean we’re prepared for it.

We do our best to adapt. We assume this is the reality of ‘being an adult’ they told us about. There is a part of us that wonders if maybe they were right. But it’s not a big part and we are still young enough to be both daring and practical. So we factor that into the plan. Bills and groceries. Laundry and taxes. We funnel our hopes into these responsibilities (more practical this way). We carve out a space in the clutter to make a part-time project of our full-time pursuit (better than nothing). We choreograph our dreams around our jobs (it’s just temporary).

She sat in front of the receipts. He held divorce papers hopefully. He didn’t want a divorce, he just wanted her attention. So did the doorbell. So did her father and his expectations. So did her daughter and her disappointments. So did the business and all its failings. So did the Schedule C forms itemizing the losses of her mis-categorized dreams and written off hopes. All those blank spaces of misunderstandings and unfulfilled potential.

HOPE AS PERSISTENCE

The first few times I found myself off track, it only made me more determined. This was just a detour. I still knew where I was going. I still knew who I was. Failure after failure, disappointment after disappointment, I picked myself back up. I knew all about bootstraps and finishing what you started. This is what defined me, reminded me what I was made of, what I was meant for. These were the parts of me I was proud of.

But stubborn hope can quickly turn into fierce idealism that, left unchecked, can become an escapism that feels perfectly justified.

He wants her to lighten up. They should have a little more fun. But she can’t afford to have fun, because she’s bankrolling it for everyone else. He dances with customers and sings out loud. He insists there’s still possibility here, a way this can work. He begs her to look around. This still looks like the life they dreamed about, doesn’t it? But the only sign of her dream is on the screen above the washers playing silently in the background of a life she can’t remember ever wanting and wouldn’t choose again.

HOPE AS A PITFALL

More years pass. More plans scrapped. Careers adapted, abandoned. A business closed. Even the things that worked, didn’t work. And somewhere along the way, my hope fractured. With it, went my identity.

I had tried everything, every which way, and still I found myself here. Every reality explored, every ending the same.

So I gave up.

It wasn’t acceptance. But it was a kind of surrender. And in that surrender, was space. And in that space, for the first time, I could hear my sadness. My fear. I actually looked at my disappointment. These soft and desperate parts of me that had hardened over time into anger and resentment. They were loud. They had a lot to say.

I met with committee of hurt feelings, of neglected points of view, and all those worn out hopes and dreams that were ready to be laid to rest. Or reborn. Either way- released. I listened to years worth of complaints and I couldn’t argue with any of them. They were right. It had all gone wrong. It had been wrong for awhile. They tried to tell me. I hadn’t wanted to admit it.

His costume was well-crafted and joyful. His persona lovable and light. Underneath, he really was that endearing and sweet and who doesn’t love a helpful hand delivered with a batch of cookies. The world needs more sugar coated kindness. But she couldn’t see him past the goofy exaggeration of someone who wasn’t living in the same world as her. The same house. The same movie. If she was in a horror, he was in a romantic comedy and there was no translation that worked between them. But then, when she is almost lost, he cries out. The mask comes off, the guard comes down. He admits he is lost, like her. That he feels sad, like her. And, then, they are speaking the same language. She can finally hear him.

DISAPPOINTMENT AS HOPE

I now know that there is no amount of being good or true or strong that will prevent bad things from happening or ensure that things work out. I know the proof I’m looking for doesn’t exist - in any universe.

And in the end, I don’t think it was my vision or my commitment to looking ahead that was the problem. It was my failure to also look around. My singular focus on what wasn’t, prevented me from seeing what was. And even though where I am, where we all are, is not where we want to stay, it is where we have to start.

I think hope without practical action is just wishful thinking. And action without an honest hope is just aimless wandering. And, like it or not, it is our disappointment, our doubt, our unhappiness, that points us in the direction of what we want instead.

“And of all the places I could be, why would I want to be here with you? Yes, you're right. It doesn't make sense. Maybe it's like you said. Maybe there is something out there, some new discovery that will make us feel like even smaller pieces of shit. Something that explains why you still went looking for me through all of this noise. And why, no matter what, I still want to be here with you. I will always, always, want to be here with you.”

You know, maybe alternate realities are not only these versions of our lives that we’ll never experience. Maybe they are also those not-yet-existent futures we hold within us. Those invisible worlds that we create with every intentional step toward them. If we can see it in our mind, it’s only a matter of time.

HOPE AS A PROLOGUE

I am finally able to imagine again. I can see a future ahead that is largely unrelated to my present, but one I believe is possible. I have a clear picture of the reality I want to believe and build into existence. And I can see the first few small steps to take between here and there.

What you’re reading right now is part of that. These honest conversations that I hope will crack open a bigger space to hold everything we are, everything that is true, everywhere our lives take us, all of it, all at once.

I haven’t thrown out that old measuring stick, but I am in the process of specifying a new one, custom built to account for the scale of this life I have chosen and am choosing again. This big, epic, full, complicated, infinite life.

It’s ok if you don’t believe me. I’ll just have to show you.

Care to explore?

What is a not yet existent future, you’re currently holding? Take me on an adventure through your alternate reality.

What are the increments you’d like to use to measure the success of your life? Do you need to specify a new measuring stick?