Thresholds by Sherre Hirsch

Author:Sherre Hirsch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale
Published: 2015-08-17T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

*1 David Lykken and Auke Tellegen, “Happiness Is a Stochastic Phenomenon,” Psychological Science 7 (1996).

*2 All quotes in this section are from Genesis 42:7.

Chapter 4

Perfection Is Not a Destination

When you aim for perfection, you discover it’s a moving target.

—Geoffrey F. Fisher

On January 22, 1990, Random House published Oh, the Places You’ll Go!, by Theodor Seuss Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss. It became one of the best-selling of the forty-six books he wrote in his lifetime and remains the graduation gift for every high school and college senior. Even though Dr. Seuss never spoke publicly about his personal connection to the book, he could have written this story only with the perspective and hindsight of having lived a life in which he had to cross many thresholds.

Though he ultimately attained hundreds of accolades and tremendous professional success, Dr. Seuss had a life filled with ups and downs. His first book was rejected twenty-seven times by publishers, and he struggled financially in the early years of his career. He married his love, Helen, but later in life she committed suicide. And of course these are the details that are public; I am sure he experienced countless other challenges that we will never be privy to.

In Oh, the Places You’ll Go! Dr. Seuss was essentially talking about thresholds. If you continue crossing them, his story is saying, you will go to rooms in which things will happen. Some will lead you where you dreamed you could be: “You’ll join the high fliers who soar to high heights.” But some will take you to a place that is tougher and rougher than you thought possible: “You can get all hung up in a prickle-ly perch. And your gang will fly on. You’ll be left in a Lurch.” Others will confuse you: “You will come to a place where the streets are not marked. Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked.” And some will lead you to fear: “There are some, down the road between hither and yon, that can scare you so much you won’t want to go on.”

But in the end Dr. Seuss asks and answers, “And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed! (98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.)”

Dr. Seuss wanted us to realize that crossing thresholds is not like climbing a ladder. Each rung does not necessarily directly lift us closer to our goal. The hallways of our lives are more like a labyrinth. They can be very circuitous and unexpected. Often we may not even know which direction we’re going, yet keep going we must, because the route will eventually lead us to the room that is 98 and ¾ percent right for us.

This is what happens to Yocheved, the mother of Moses, in the famous Bible story. When she and her husband, Amram, become pregnant with their first child, Pharaoh has decreed that all the firstborn male children be put to death. So when Moses is born, it seems their son’s fate is sealed. He will be killed.

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