SEPTEMBER 16, 2021 – No one’s asked me recently, “If you could do life over, what vocation would you pursue?” If I were asked, I’m unsure what I’d say. I might surprise myself and answer, “Law.” With partial sarcasm, I’d say, “Construction crane insurance agent,” because an insurance executive once told me “that’s where all the easy money is.” Money can buy a lot of stuff that makes a person happy . . . or at least happier. To my knowledge, however, no one ever became famous as a “construction crane insurance agent.”
Or perhaps I’d startle myself by saying, “Cultural anthropology”—where, I’m assuming, the easy money definitely isn’t, unless you get lucky, write a best-selling book called, Sleeping with Strangers, which brings you fame, which allows you to win a big advance on your second book, and so on, until you’re granting interviews at your large faculty office looking out on the leafy campus quadrangle of a prestigious university, all of which makes you immensely happy.
When we were kids, my sisters and I used to play the Parker Brothers board game, Careers. It was a cleverly designed pastime by which we learned the basic ingredients of “success” in our culture: money, fame, and happiness. Our early edition included eight “career paths”: Farming, Big Business, at Sea, Uranium Prospecting, Politics, Hollywood, and an Expedition to the Moon. Education offerings included college degrees in Law, Medicine, Engineering, Science, or “General.” You had “Opportunity” and “Experience” cards to draw from, a pair of dice, player implements, and naturally, a bank full of play money. The object was to be the first to achieve “success.” “Success” was an individual matter. Before commencement of the game, each player wrote down (confidentially), the combination of money, fame, and happiness points that defined “success” in the judgment of that player.
Stuff happened—some a matter of good or bad luck (landing on a “bad” square; drawing a good “Opportunity” card); lots by good or bad judgment (taking on too much debt; retiring too early). On rainy, summer days, we’d become heavily engrossed in our Careers, the box for which was in shambles by the time we’d all graduated from our younger years.
As I remember, I placed a premium on fame and money. I was generally happy, so I took the happiness component for granted, but as a kid, I had zero fame and only a little cash, and I wanted lots of both. Even without a TV in the house, I’d already picked up on cultural norms: fame worship and materialism. From my older sisters’ choices on the Careers board, I learned the places to go for fame and money. Farming wasn’t one of them. Law, Medicine, and Uranium Prospecting were “on the money.” Hollywood and Expedition to the Moon brought plenty of fame. Whatever you chose, however, you didn’t want to pass up “Education.”
“Cultural Anthropology” wasn’t a choice. If it had been, I doubt I would’ve pursued it. I was too focused on fame and money.
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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
