The fig analogy

I was scrolling through Tiktok, and I came across a creator

how they want to do so much, but at the end they are afraid that they end up becoming nothing.

That hit me.

If there was a way to describe all my ambitions and goals…. it would be this…

That video led me down the path of Sylvia Plath’s Fig Analogy

The idea is having unrealisitic standard of wanting to be so many things,

each fig representing a goal, one fig being a writer, another fig for a traveler, another fig for being financially free etc.

But you can’t have it all,

choosing one meant letting go of all the others and letting them die.

And on top of this I have the extra struggle of painting a rosy picture of me being this machine and being able to achieve so much,

is me struggling with perfectionism

that became overwhelming sleepless nights, creating deadlines and feeling like a failure

I realise that maybe life isn’t about having it all, but savoring that one fig that you choose and letting all the other figs fall to the ground.