"Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you’re wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn’t love you anymore."
One of my favorite women of all time said that [sarcasm alert!]. You guessed it -- Lady Gaga! She speaks here very powerfully about two things that keep me up at night : the search for a vocation and cynicism.
As I mentioned Monday, I spent this past weekend at the Catholics on Call conference, learning about discernment and different types of vocations. When discerning a vocation, we make decisions based on where God is calling us, but we find this place through our gifts, our desires, and other people. Some people are called to religious life; others are called to the lay world.
This year, I have met several amazing women who have chosen the single life in order to give their full hearts to their ministries. At one point, I was scared that being called to lay ministry would doom me to a single life. Or destine or fate or call. Then it stopped being a fear and stopped being a destiny. It was just an unspoken, unrecognized underlying assumption of what is "most likely to happen" if I go down certain career paths.
I wasn't just reacting to a handful of beautiful single women. Women raised after the Sexual Revolution, women my age and somewhat older, have heard all our lives that we can "have it all." Career, husband, children, social life, everything a girl can dream of. And then, as these girls who were raised to "have it all" got older, something changed. Women began to drop out of the workforce! A journalist noticed this and called it the "
Opt-Out Revolution." Then Pamela Stone, a sociologist, in the way of sociologists, questioned the veracity of the title and explored women's agency in the choice of dropping out. Stone noticed that high-powered, high-paid women were leaving the work-force, but that many external factors influenced this "choice." It wasn't, as the journalist had assumed, that women wanted to get back into the kitchen.
Other sociologists, of course, noted that Stone paid attention only to a specific demographic of women who could afford to drop out. Many women had always done both family and career and had no choice but to do so. And so the debate began and carries on in the sociology of gender. Meanwhile, women who are less obsessed than I with academic questions quietly note from the example of friends, sisters, mentors, aunts, mothers, and acquaintances that we have been fed a myth. No one can have it all.
Maybe that sounds cynical. (Didn't I mention cynicism earlier?) But it isn't meant to be. Everything requires sacrifice. Everything. I sacrificed pancakes for breakfast this morning in order to have oatmeal. A tiny, tiny sacrifice to be sure. I sacrificed a year at home with friends and family to spend a year in St. Louis learning to love other people. A sacrifice I would not change. The same thing happens in a woman's life (and a man's) when she tries to build a life with a family and a career. It's not a bad thing -- it's life.
So. Lady Gaga. She does quite a number with language there. You can "follow your dreams" or "follow a man." Obviously here, a woman's "dreams" are career dreams. Now, I have no dream of being Lady Gaga, or a career field close to hers. I do not limit my dreams to what my job will be. This weekend, I ended up with more questions and strategies than answers and lessons, but I did learn this : that it's okay to have dreams about parts of my life other than career. Family, friendships, spirituality -- it's okay to dream. Pursuing one's career is not the same as following one's dreams.
Now, I am the type of woman who would never follow a man anywhere without a ring on her finger. However, once again, Lady Gaga offers a false equivalency. Choosing to love someone, choosing to make career sacrifices for another human person does not mean abandoning one's dreams. As I said earlier, sacrifice is everywhere. What's more, it is completely necessary for love. Our society has this crazy notion that love is easy. It's not. As a good friend once said, love means "our mutual sacrifices bring each other closer to God." Building relationship with someone, whether a friendship or a romantic relationship, requires making decisions based on that someone. That doesn't mean you're following them or ruining your "own" life.
Despite all this, my first instinct to Lady Gaga's comment was to agree. I caught myself -- What are you doing, Beth?! -- and my instincts put me on guard. Why did I want to back up such a dreary life view? Enter cynicism. It's easier not to have intimacies and dreams, because then we don't risk being hurt or being disappointed. But the life of a cynic is lonely. If we don't engage in sacrificial relationships, we keep everyone at a distance. We reject the intimacy for which we are created. This rejection doesn't mean keeping everyone 100 yards away. If we keep people at an arm's length (a mistake I make), we keep them out of hugging distance. We were made to be intimate and relational. We need to love and be loved.
Someone should tell Lady Gaga that your career will never wake up and tell you, "I love you."
