Do we need to have it all?

Source: www.petitapou.com

“Women can’t have it all” said Indra Nooyi and created a rage over the Internet. Both Facebook and Twitter couldn't get enough of it and readers had had enough. Was she right in what she said? Did she make the ever evasive ‘perfect’ sense? Was it time to place her on a pedestal and worship her every morning? Did her interview deserve the kind of attention it received? Was her article such a game changer that it could lead to a sudden wave of the phrase “Can’t women really have it all?”   

“As if we men have it all?” lamented many men. Life doesn't always treat them with a chocolate lasagna or throw petals at their feet, they said. They have it bad too, being stereotyped as the bread winners of the family, being looked down upon if they chose to quit their jobs while their spouses baked the bread and earned it too. Nobody cares for their frustrations, and that frustrates them all the more.

And so the battle ensued, through heated arguments on Facebook threads, re-tweets on Twitter or just seething within.

After all it was a successful CEO being bluntly straightforward about her own views. Maybe it could have been THE article of the year?

I don’t know and here’s the thing, I don’t care.

While we can crib and lament as much as we like about how unfair life is with us, there is a simple fact that we tend to ignore. We had something on hand that decided what we are today. That tiny thing which showed up both sides of the coin, giving us an almost clear picture of what the grass looked like on either side. And we decided to do one thing over the other, simply because of that thing we had in hand, that thing we call CHOICE.

Yes, we had the choice between a domestic life or a career. To decide if we wanted to go the entrepreneurial way, be a freelancer or work for a large organization. Whether we wanted to take on challenging roles that demanded long working hours or settle for a 9-5 job which did not necessarily give growth or visibility. To agree on which spouse should work from home or quit their job to maintain that much coveted balance. To choose to get married or not to, to wear a bindi and jingle the bangles or smoke and resort to a drink. Whatever it is that we did and still do, whatever it is that makes us crib and go cranky over – we had a choice NOT to do it.

No doubt, circumstance is the biggest factor that drives the choices we make. We take the decision to do something only after weighing the circumstances and deciding what is right and what is not – for us. So, if we need to compromise our career for our personal life or vice versa, who is responsible for it if not us? If we have to bear the taunts of family and society for a decision we have taken, who is accountable if not us? If our choices hurt another, who is answerable if not us?

Once we make our choices, they are carved in stone and we are well aware of that. We take those decisions for a reason, doesn't that weigh over everything else?- esp. friends, family and society? If they did not feature while making the choice, why do we let them affect us later on?

Why do we begin to blame our choices and wonder if we cannot have it all?

Wanting to have it all, is a human desire which will never fade away. That is how we have been designed because only then will we strive to perfect the world we live in. And the tool that has been bestowed upon us to get there is Choice.

It is nature’s law that circumstances and needs/wants form a see-saw, one that we have to more often than not choose between, and rarely do we find it in balance. And we make that choice based on what is best for us in that situation. But once we move on into another, we tend to forget that choice we made and it sets us off on an emotion upheaval with only one question on mind “Can’t I have it all?”

No we can’t have it all. Even when we think we have everything we could wish for, there will always be something that we wish we could have had. Not because life is unfair or because it favours one gender over the other or lets society take its place but because that is a law of nature without which we would lose value for what we already have in our lives.

So when the Pepsi CEO says she can’t have it all it is because she valued her career over everything else. When the sole ‘bread winner’ frustrated at work says he can’t have it all it is because he chose to be the financial backbone of his family. When a woman is upset about deciding between choosing time with her children and a challenging role at work, it is because she does not know what she values more. When a girl gets irritated by the questions thrown at her westernized attires or single status it is because she gives more importance to the interference in her life rather than the choice she made.

It is never about what we can or cannot have, it is always about the choices we make and how much we allow the path not taken to affect us.