Thanks!

Among the people who prove to be major influences are those who do not intend to. The situation I’ll describe happened near the end of grad school. My girlfriend at the time had come to see me as a somewhat colorful fruitcake. I was not up to her glorious standards. I was not going anywhere other than down. During one of those interminable pre-breakup conversations, she asked me intently, ” Lou, what do you want to achieve in life?”

It was a great question I had never expressed the answer to her but knew it. I paused and then told her I was committed to making a better world. It was the sort of thing that was obvious for an anthropologist to be committed to. But I had never expressed it in direct words.

She blinked and looked blankly at me, and I realized that she hadn’t expected that response, or maybe any response. There was a long pause, and then she shifted the focus of the conversation.

For some people, the period before a breakup is filled with long conversations or arguments that are superficially about saving the relationship. In our case, I think they were about preparing the justifications for breaking up. Bright and early one morning, she called me to break off our engagement. The reasons were those carefully prepared during our pre-breakup conversations.

It took me a lot of time to realize how important that one declaration of purpose actually was. After all those nasty roundabouts of accusations, pleas, and recriminations, I was finally able to pull forth one bright and true thing. I wanted to make the world a better place.

Give me some credit. I knew chances were good it might be tiny things, not grand achievements. But that was OK.

So, strangely, my ex-girlfriend had a very positive effect on me by helping me verbalize and concretize my goals. It changed my career orientation from academic anthropology to applied or practicing, anthropology and set me on a long path to creating cultural and educational programs and projects.

So wherever you are, thanks…I know you didn’t mean to help out, but thanks anyway!