You’ll Never Be Famous — And That’s O.K.

Emily Esfahani Smith

1 Today’s college students want to change the world, but too many think that living a meaningful life requires doing something extraordinary and remarkable like becoming a star, starting a wildly successful company or ending a humanitarian crisis.

2 Having hopes and dreams for the future is part of being young. But thanks to social media, purpose and success have become confused with fame: Extraordinary lives look like the norm online. Yet the idea that a meaningful life must be or appear remarkable is not only limited but also misguided.

3 The most meaningful lives, I’ve learned, are often not the extraordinary ones. They’re the ordinary ones lived with dignity.

4 There’s perhaps no better expression of that wisdom than George Eliot’s Middlemarch, a book I think every college student should read. At 700-some pages, it requires devotion and discipline. Much like a meaningful life, the completion of this book is hard-won and requires effort. The heroine of the novel is Dorothea Brooke, a wealthy young gentlewoman in a provincial English town. Dorothea has a passionate nature and yearns to accomplish some good in the world as a philanthropist. The novel’s hero, Tertius Lydgate, is an ambitious young doctor who hopes to make important scientific discoveries. Both hope to lead epic lives.

5 Both Dorothea and Tertius end up in disastrous marriages — she to the preacher Mr. Casaubon, he to the town beauty Rosamond. Slowly, their dreams wither away. Rosamond, who is vain and superficial, wants Tertius to pursue a career paying enough to support her extraordinary tastes, and by the end of the novel, he yields, abandoning his scientific quest to become a doctor. Though conventionally “successful,” he dies at 50 believing himself a failure for not following through on his original life plan.

6 As for Dorothea, after the Reverend Casaubon dies, she marries her true love, Will Ladislaw. But her larger ambitions go unrealized. At first it seems that she, too, has wasted her potential.

7 Tertius’s tragedy is that he never reconciles himself to his dull reality. Dorothea’s triumph is that she does.

8 By novel’s end, she settles into life as a wife and a mother, and becomes, Eliot writes, the “foundress of nothing.” It may be a letdown for the reader, but not for Dorothea. She dedicates herself to the roles as mother and wife.

9 Looking out her window one day, she sees a family making its way down the road and comes to the realization that she needs to begin to live in the moment. Rather than give in to the despair of disappointed dreams, she embraces her life as it is and contributes to those around her as she can. Eliot’s final word on Dorothea1 which is one of the most beautiful passages in literature, captures what a meaningful life is about: connecting and contributing to something beyond the self, in whatever humble form that may take.

10 Most young adults won’t achieve the idealistic goals they’ve set for themselves. They won’t become the next Mark Zuckerberg. But that doesn’t mean their lives will lack significance and worth. We all have a circle of people whose lives we can touch and improve — and we can find our meaning in that.

11 A new and growing body of research within psychology about meaningfulness confirms the wisdom of Eliot’s novel — that meaning is found not in success and glamour but in the ordinary. One research study showed that adolescents who did household chores felt a stronger sense of purpose. Why? The researchers believe it’s because they’re contributing to something bigger: their family. Another study found that cheering up a friend was an activity that created meaning in a young adult’s life. People who see their occupations as an opportunity to serve their immediate community find more meaning in their work, whether it’s an accountant helping his client or a factory worker supporting her family with a paycheck.

12 As students head to school this year, they should consider this: You don’t have to change the world or find your one true purpose to lead a meaningful life. A good life is a life of goodness — and that’s something anyone can aspire to, no matter their dreams or circumstances.

3. Questions for your reading comprehension

4. Translation