Althouse: "You can’t have it all. When you finally come to accept that, it’s liberating.

November 8, 2012

"You can’t have it all. When you finally come to accept that, it’s liberating.

"You don’t have to feel like a bad employee or a bad parent for not being able to do it all. As Al Pacino says in the Devil’s Advocate: 'Guilt is like a bag of bricks, all you gotta do is set it down.'"

22 comments:

Cedarford said...: Mmmmmm....you omitted that Pacino was the Devil in that movie.

Of course he thought people should "move on" after doing something bad and not let remorse hold them back from enjoying themselves and sinning more.; 11/8/12, 8:54 PM
ricpic said...: ...it shouldn't be so damned hard - in the richest country on Earth - to have a big time job and be a loving parent.

Who are these people?; 11/8/12, 8:59 PM
edutcher said...: Good for her.

There's more important things out there than money and ego.

Cultivating one's garden, f'rinstance.; 11/8/12, 9:03 PM
Paul said...: Really that is a large part of Christianity.

Forgiveness.

Ask for forgiveness from God and the guilt goes way. Forgive others and the hate goes away.

And that's a big difference from us and the Muslims.; 11/8/12, 9:29 PM
MadisonMan said...: When will women learn what men have always known?; 11/8/12, 9:44 PM
MadisonMan said...: (and yes -- knowing and accepting that is very liberating); 11/8/12, 9:51 PM
wyo sis said...: Surprise, surprise we have to make choices and balance our lives. Should this startle people who are all about choice.
If you choose to be a biglaw lawyer you might have already learned that and if you didn't it's time you did. And what does living in the richest country on Earth have to do with it?; 11/8/12, 10:14 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Cedarford beat me to it.; 11/8/12, 10:20 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: The post seems to advise that one can't have it all, so do both poorly and don't feel bad about it. Probably bad advice.; 11/8/12, 10:38 PM
Mary Beth said...: Pacino played Satan, we should be taking advice from him?; 11/8/12, 10:47 PM
mccullough said...: Pacino's character's name was John Milton, which was pretty funny.; 11/8/12, 10:50 PM
n.n said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 11/9/12, 12:38 AM
n.n said...: Ah, finally, positive progress. People do have choices. There is no legitimate reason why we should be exclusively motivated by material, physical, and ego gratification. It seems that the "progressive" and "liberal" reactive movements are being confronted by a diversity of reality. There may be hope for our society and humanity yet. Evolutionary dysfunction is not inevitable.

Actually, you can have it all, but you must plan for it with reason and patience. There is no instant gratification without consequences.; 11/9/12, 12:42 AM
Dan in Philly said...: You can't have it all, where would you put it?
- Stephen Wright.
Seriously money is overrated. If you have enough money to be secure, the rest is just a question of what you enjoy and what you find challenging and fun. Working 20 hours a day while allowing others to enjoy raising your kids is not my idea of a good time.; 11/9/12, 4:42 AM
KJE said...: Above the Law is a gawd awful blog, and this from a lawyer. I think it tries to be Volokh conspiracy, but comes off like TMZ, without as much class.; 11/9/12, 5:55 AM
Unknown said...: Well women shoulld understand that men already know it :P

readmore; 11/9/12, 5:59 AM
Dante said...: 8:15am: TRAFFIC
6:30pm: TRAFFIC with a side of screaming kids who are starving

This is one of my pet peeves. Traffic consumes up to an hour of my time each workday day. Yet, I pay taxes, a lot of them. Why is it the government can not take care of the people who WORK?

Maybe Inga can help us to understand, why the people who produce the stuff she wants redistributed aren't taken care of?; 11/9/12, 8:36 AM
Peter said...: "Maybe Inga can help us to understand, why the people who produce the stuff she wants redistributed aren't taken care of?"

You are taken care of. You're the milk cow. You get milked, don't you?

And if you just stop producing and join the other side, well, we just gained another loyal voter!; 11/9/12, 8:51 AM
Dante said...: I'm not asking for a solution. Read what I'm asking for. I'm asking for an explanation.; 11/9/12, 8:51 AM
Dante said...: I think this story was a whine. It might have been cathartic, but still a whine.

Yes, you are right! We should all work our buts off so Obama can give his buddies oodles of money for "Green Energy"! And then they can all go bankrupt!

This idea that we should smile and enjoy the parasites is ridiculous.; 11/9/12, 8:56 AM
Dante said...: Leslyn, do you know the difference between stating facts and whining?

I should be more careful. I used my own experience rather than take the time to figure out the total time wasted in traffic.

Here you go: Gridlock forced us to spend an additional 4.8 billion hours in traffic in 2009, wasting an additional 3.9 billion gallons of fuel. All told we blew $115 billion in traffic last year when you consider things like wasted fuel, lost work time and shipping delays.

Where are the greens saying to decongest the roads?

And where are the greens saying "No more Immigration to America, we have a huge Carbon foot print?"

See, that's whining to you. You are an unoriginal bitch.; 11/9/12, 9:36 AM
Dante said...: If I personally attacked you by using the word "whine," I'm sorry.

It felt like a repetition of the people who won telling everyone else to grin and bear it. I don't like the argument. To the extent it wasn't a personal attack, I apologize for calling you an unoriginal bitch.

Out here in CA, it appears the answer is to build trolleys, High Speed Rail Trains, and left hand HOV overpass lanes, all at great expense, and none which provide little to no traffic relief.

Here is my solution. My solution is to allow companies to bid for maintaining a regions infrastructure, and a certain amount of dollars is provided. The contracts are opened up for rebidding every number of years.

The only metrics for evaluation are the rate at which roads flow, and how well they are maintained.

That's my solution.; 11/9/12, 12:58 PM