Thank God I Didn't Get What I Wanted

I'm only ever just a part of the greater whole

As I settle down to write my fourth Substack post, I notice a sense of heavy weight on my shoulders. I want to write something that matters, that makes the world better in some way. That’s the most mild way to put it. The more honest and vulnerable thing to say is that I want to write something that fixes the world. My wisdom and my words have the power to topple the whole social order and dismantle capitalism and create a more beautiful society. Because I have the answers.

Reading that back, I want to laugh. It’s absurd, of course. Why do I always jump to grandiosity? Why can’t it be enough to impact just a few people around me with small and humble acts of service? I feel embarrassed and frustrated at myself for unconsciously valuing bigness in my quest to create a better world that doesn’t value bigness of profit & power for its own sake. Tryna dismantle the master’s house with the master’s tools.

Pausing. Breathing. Noticing how tight my chest feels. Noticing how much pressure I put on myself to be perfectly pure and good in my actions. Obviously, that’s impossible in this world. But I’m afraid to cause harm and replicate oppressive cultures and norms. Thus, paralysis.

It feels good to be naming all of this.

I feel empathy for Elon Musk.

Like, his quality of wanting to do things that change the world in a big way and wanting more and more power to do so - I get that. I share that.

I recently found this old school project from maybe second grade, one of those “About Me” assignments sharing my favorite animal, color, hobby, etc. Cute, right? In the middle of the paper is an adorable photo of seven-year-old me, smiling toothily in OshKosh denim. To the left of that and under the “My Favorite Food” section (shrimp chips) is my handwritten answer to “My Wish”, which isn’t something like “to have a pony”. No, my seven year old’s response was “I wish I could controul every one and everything.”

I could psychoanalyze myself forever about this, and point to how little control I had as a child over my life, how trapped I felt in the school system. Maybe that’s why I started a “California Girls’ Club” at recess that year and deemed myself President and demanded that the other girls pay dues and execute my vision of our lemonade stand hustle exactly to my liking. Thankfully, they rebelled and told me I had “the biggest problem in the world” in the girl’s bathroom and rage-quit the club.

It was good feedback for me to receive at such an early age, albeit difficult. I wish I could say I never tried to force other people into my rigid visions ever again, but it’s a phenomenon that has happened again and again over the course of my life, in many different forms. A music group. A friend group. A nonprofit organization.

I develop this certainty that I know what’s best. We need to do it this way. And then, it doesn’t go according to my plan. The band breaks up. The nonprofit lays me off. And every time, I eventually feel this huge sense of relief. Because even though I had thought I knew what was best, I didn’t. And it turns out that something much better and more aligned was around the corner, though I could never see it at the time.

I’m only ever just one part of the whole. Wisdom comes from piecing together all of the parts to see the whole picture clearly, and taking shared action from that place.

I shudder to think what would have happened if I had just gotten my way in all those different situations. If people just bent to my will. Maybe I’d be just like Elon Musk. Controlling everyone and everything. It sounds so stressful and alienating.

I feel so grateful that I grew up in the Japanese American community, which if you didn’t know is the champion of collective action. Whether coming together to survive the WWII concentration camps, or creating lasting community institutions like basketball leagues, foundations, museums, and churches, JAs are incredibly good at working together to build collective power and sovereignty. I was a part of this whole from first grade through high school, but I was playing a pre-defined role in a well-oiled system - anyone could have filled it.

Now, I live in a 15-person co-op house that shows me everyday how much more beautiful and easeful life can be when we work together to cook, clean, take care of each other, and make decisions. I love being a part of this whole, and I think I’m an important part. I matter.

I think that’s really all I want. I want to become my wisest, most fully-expressed creative self, and be an important part in a greater whole. I long for the greater societal whole to come together in understanding and then action. I want to be a part of creating that. And I think I already am.

This feels complete, except I notice I’m feeling scared to post this. Do my shadowy tendencies make me sound like a psychopath? Can anyone relate to this at all? Will it ruin the image of me as being Pure and Good?

Now that I see that written out, I know it’s actually really good for people to see the fullness of me, and not just the shiny parts I carefully curate for my Online Presence. I trust that I’ll be accepted and loved, and if I’m not, those people aren’t for me. And if this post encourages someone else to share more of their fullness that they’re afraid to, then it will have been worth it.