How to deal with the choice overload in your life: Sylvia Plath’s fig tree analogy in the context of decision-making
She was “starving to death” because she couldn’t make up her mind which of the many figs she wanted to choose. It is the case in everybody’s life and even though it is tragic, we can not escape it. Viewing this analogy through the lens of complexity, decision-making, and enabling the right constraints can make it less scary and even dealt with to some extent.
Here is how it goes:
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one…
