So, I’ve been meaning to talk about this Sylvia Plath fig tree thing for a while now. Lots of people bring it up, and I nod along, but my journey with that whole idea has been a bit of a bumpy ride, if I’m honest.
When I first read about it in “The Bell Jar,” I was younger, and I thought, “Yeah, I get it. Too many choices, can’t decide, so you get nothing.” Seemed straightforward enough. All those ripe figs, each one a different future, and you’re just standing there, starving because you’re too scared to pick one and miss out on the others. Classic overthinker problem, right?
But it didn’t really hit me in the gut until a few years ago. I mean, really hit me. I was at this point in my life, a real crossroads. It felt like there were a dozen different paths I could take. A steady job offer in a city I wasn’t sure about. A chance to go back to studying something completely different. Even a wild idea to pack up and travel with no real plan. Each one looked like a juicy fig, tempting for a moment.
And what did I do? Absolutely nothing. For months. I’d wake up, and that fig tree was right there in my head. I’d analyze one fig, one path, until it seemed rotten. Then I’d look at another, and the same thing would happen. The fear of picking the ‘wrong’ one was so huge that I just… froze. It wasn’t just about big life decisions anymore; it started to creep into small things too. I was genuinely starving, metaphorically speaking, because I was letting all these possibilities, all these potential lives, just wither and die because I couldn’t commit to one.
It got pretty bad. I felt stuck, like I was watching my own life from the sidelines, and all the good fruit was just dropping and spoiling around me. Friends were making moves, things were happening for other people, and I was just… there. Paralyzed. It wasn’t a good feeling, let me tell you. It was this gnawing anxiety that Plath described so well, that feeling of all the opportunities turning sour because of inaction.
So, my “practice,” if you can call it that, wasn’t some grand strategy. It was messy. I eventually got so tired of being hungry and stuck that I just reached out and grabbed a fig. Any fig. It wasn’t the perfect one, it probably wasn’t even the one I’d have dreamed of a year earlier. But I made a choice. I took a small, uncertain step down one path. It was terrifying. I was sure I’d made a mistake.
But you know what? The world didn’t end. Slowly, by just doing something, things started to shift. That one fig, even if it wasn’t the plumpest, gave me a bit of energy. It got me moving. And once I was moving, I realized a few things. First, no fig is perfect. Second, new figs sometimes appear when you’re on a path, ones you couldn’t even see from where you were standing before. And third, you can always course-correct a bit. It’s not like picking one fig means you can never taste another, or that your path is set in stone forever.
Now, that fig tree image doesn’t just feel like a clever literary metaphor. It’s a very real memory of a tough time. But it’s also a reminder. A reminder that yeah, choice can be overwhelming, and the fear of missing out is a beast. But the alternative, that paralysis, is worse. For me, the practice became about accepting that I can’t live every possible life. I just have to pick one, and then another, and make the best of it. And honestly, sometimes the figs you thought you missed? Maybe they weren’t as sweet as they looked from a distance anyway.
