My unambition
The closing quote of Middlemarch reads thus: “the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”
This quotation resonates with me because it is essentially how I picture my life. I do not expect to ever be written of in history books. I don’t plan to ever be seen on national television. If such things do occur in my life it will be a convergence of happenstance not because it is a goal of mine. I can’t say I would mind making a huge and visible difference for the better in the world, but I don’t expect it. My gift to the world will be four well raised children, an emotionally supported cartoonist, and whatever other good deeds happen to come under my hands. I would much rather do thorough good deeds for a few people than scatter my efforts so thinly that they coat the intended targets like dust.
Perhaps my ambitions will be raised once I’m not buried under the needs of small children. But at the moment I don’t feel I’m doing well enough tending the small spot that is given me to want to spread myself any thinner.