You Are What You Do

"I could do all that stuff. I just don't feel like it."

Honors PreCalc, a devilishly difficult class for my humanities-wired brain. Lyndon B. Johnson's granddaughter was my teacher (actually), and toughness runs in the family. It was hard for high school. Tests and quizzes were trouble enough, but I remember hating the homework sets most of all.

Each Monday we received a pile of problems to solve for the week. These weren't quick response. From what I remember, these questions took hours to complete. Each moment struggling through polynomials and logs passed slowly, so slowly, almost excruciating.

And so, I often skipped the assignments. I would turn in something, but I wouldn't give them the attention the deserved. I'd scrawl out half-baked answers on the bus, I'd pretend-work through them at lunch, and I'd mine the back of the book for answers.

My PreCalc grade suffered thanks to poor habits. One day my mother asked me about my struggles in math class. I distinctly remember my answer: I *could* do all that work each week. I could be like my fellow grade-A students. I just don't feel like it.

My mom, rarely the tough-love type, snapped back at this one. That's meaningless. You might as well say you "could" run marathon if you felt like it. Saying you could do something is worthless. All you are is what you do.

Years later, as I've begun dipping into philosophy, this idea returned. Jean-Paul Sartre tells the story of the French student in World War II who faces a dilemma: go fight the war and leave his ailing mother, or stay with his ailing mother without contributing to the Allied cause. Professor Sartre, what should I do?

Sartre responds: The decision is fully yours, no one can decide for your, and it absolutely matters what you choose. We are the sum of our thoughts and actions. Nothing more, nothing less. No could’ves, no would’ves. Saying you had the potential, had things been just a bit different, reaches the same depths of pathetic as my math class claim.

You have absolute freedom to take action, or not. Hypotheticals don't count. What will you choose? As Sartre said, the Existentialists were seen as pessimists. But in his mind, people just couldn't stomach the "sternness of their optimism."

Choose well.