To Each His Own

So, another run-in with the sefer-hugging, beis medrash-dwelling male relative. The discussion, distractions and s'vivah. The argument, well, said kinsperson claimed that everyone makes their own choices and can land wherever they want to place themselves in life. I said that not everyone can (or is meant to) sit in yeshiva all day cocooned from worldly distractions, especially not those of the female variety within the realm of Orthodox Judaism.

I've made the mistake in the past calling the B"M a "bubble" to the face of a date, as well as arguing that "in the 'real world'..." Yeshiva guys don't like that very much.

Really, what am I supposed to think/say? Those around me like to blame it on college educated liberalism. Others might argue that college education and exposure to the "real world" helps one to become his true self and break out of the indoctrination of the "yeshivish" education system.

I don't think that there's one golden middle path. To each his own, I say. Yes, the purpose of this world is as a corridor to the next, and we're supposed to find ways to become closer to our Creator, but how we should accomplish this is individual to each person.

I'm not you, and you're not me. My potential and my tafkid is different from yours. You're not Joe and Joe isn't you. If you did what Joe did, maybe that would be wrong, but let Joe do what Joe does, and it may be right for him, even if it's wrong for you. I disagree with the pretense that you must decide he's wrong and you're right, so that you don't get influenced by him. I respect your decision to sit and learn all day (ok, maybe not so much the part where someone else pays all your bills), so please respect my decision and my best attempt to do what I hope will work for me with the tools that I was given.

My challenges are different than yours, and quite frankly, I don't know what yours look like. I mean, to me it seems that you're almost on paid vacation. You get to be involved in intellectual stimulation all day every day, living with your wife who cooks all your meals and does all your errands and laundry, and someone is paying all your expenses.

You want to argue that I'm too open-minded and I let too many distractions into my life? Well, I have yet to be presented with the choice to learn all day, live in a place I love with the person of my dreams, and not have a care in the world.

I pursued a career to take responsibility, to help support a family one day. None of that is even in my control. I wouldn't need things to fill the empty ache in my life if I could've, like you, come home from Israel and gotten married within the year.

It's great that you know what G-d wants from you, because I sure don't know what He wants from me, and neither do you. Had He wanted me not to go to grad school, things wouldn't have worked out the way they did. I mean really, what do you expect me to do? Sit around and be a playgroup morah until a knight in a white station wagon sweeps me away to live a life of learning and taking others' money?