IS HARVARD WORTH IT?
Dear Wilhemina
I’ve been trying to make a decision about my future for several months now. I have an undergraduate degree from the LSE and have been offered a place on a postgraduate course there. But I have also been accepted into a prestigious programme at a top American university whose name starts with an H. The US option, which is a long-held dream, comes with an £80,000 price tag—give or take a few takeaway meals. I can afford it: I’ve been saving for years and have secured a part-time job there with a British company. But all of a sudden I’m wondering whether this is silly, so much money for one year at H… What should I do?
Anxious Mike
Dear Anxious Mike
Unless the “H” stands for Harcourt Community College of Arts and Sciences—then for God’s sake, go! I understand your last-minute hesitation—£80,000 feels like a huge sum of money to invest when the return is obvious but not exactly tangible. But this isn’t just about the quality of education. The LSE is a very good place and, yes, it would cost you a fraction of the price to remain in an institution to which people from H flock. But this is about you and something you’ve valued enough to save towards. Things change fast at your age and you may find it hard to take such chances again in a few years’ time. So, take the opportunity, and make the most of it. I can’t imagine that you will spend much time wishing you hadn’t embraced the adventure.
Wilhemina
I HATE HELPING THE POOR
Dear Wilhemina
I regard myself as a lifelong socialist and Christian. I’ve always sought to apply the principles of justice, fairness, equity and redistribution in my personal life. Six months ago I started a new job in a large charity which, for the first time, allowed me to put these principles into action on a professional level. I was finally going to help the poor, care for outcasts and feel as though I was making a difference. Well, I may be making a difference (though I am not sure) but to my shame, I hate my job. Or, more precisely, I hate the daily contact with the people I want to help, and I seem to be acquiring every prejudice I used to despise—I find them ungrateful, lazy and feckless. And it’s all I can do not to scream, or quit, or both. How can I look at myself in the mirror in the morning feeling this way and then go to work?
TC
Dear TC
One piece of advice, then: don’t look at yourself in the mirror. Perhaps you’re spending too much time listening to yourself, checking your reactions against your extremely high standards, paying attention to the voices in your head, and not enough appraising the results of what you’re doing. It seems that you’re losing sight of why you wanted this job: to make a difference to others. You need to square the strange idealisation of those who are most deprived in our societies with the reality of their existence. Deprivation works on many levels, as you well know, and one of its results can be to make people seemingly ungrateful or oblivious to what is being done for them. Need I remind you of what you no doubt used to preach to others, which is that there are underlying causes for this?
And we need to be realistic. Many of us can be feckless, lazy and ungrateful; in any population you’ll come across quite a few people like this, and in particular when it comes to groups whose trust has often been systematically undermined. Despite the fact that you are there to help them, you might also represent a system that has let them down, or which they feel has let them down. Stick to your principles, repeat them like a mantra and look for results—that’s where you’ll find the satisfaction to keep going. As the French author Romain Gary once wrote, heroism lies in seeing the world as it truly is—and loving it nonetheless.
Wilhemina
HE WON’T GET RID OF HIS BEARD
Dear Wilhemina
I don’t know how to put this delicately: my husband has grown a beard and I hate it. I want him to shave it off and he won’t. What do I do? I feel as though I’m on the verge of being very nasty and telling him exactly why I can’t stand his awful, awful beard.
Outraged and itchy
Dear Outraged and itchy
Beards are a strange thing. CS Lewis once noted that they seem to be disagreeable to nearly all females—and yet! Two responses spring to mind. The first is adolescent, and probably not terribly good advice: you could tell him that, since he’s apparently oblivious to your needs, you’ll be oblivious to his—stop shaving your legs, for example, or other things you may do to make yourself attractive. You would need to make sure that this strategy wouldn’t involve punishing yourself as well, though. The second is a little more grown up. Park some of that frustration and ask why he grew it—and is continuing to despite your protestations. Is he doing it to annoy you? If so, why?
I’m reminded of a passage from the wonderful John Updike. Make of it what you will: “The scissors cut the long-grown hair, the razor scrapes the remnant fuzz. Small-jawed, weak-chinned, bug-eyed, I stare at the forgotten boy I was.”
Wilhemina
Send your problems—in confidence—to wilhemina@prospect-magazine.co.uk
Dear Wilhemina
I’ve been trying to make a decision about my future for several months now. I have an undergraduate degree from the LSE and have been offered a place on a postgraduate course there. But I have also been accepted into a prestigious programme at a top American university whose name starts with an H. The US option, which is a long-held dream, comes with an £80,000 price tag—give or take a few takeaway meals. I can afford it: I’ve been saving for years and have secured a part-time job there with a British company. But all of a sudden I’m wondering whether this is silly, so much money for one year at H… What should I do?
Anxious Mike
Dear Anxious Mike
Unless the “H” stands for Harcourt Community College of Arts and Sciences—then for God’s sake, go! I understand your last-minute hesitation—£80,000 feels like a huge sum of money to invest when the return is obvious but not exactly tangible. But this isn’t just about the quality of education. The LSE is a very good place and, yes, it would cost you a fraction of the price to remain in an institution to which people from H flock. But this is about you and something you’ve valued enough to save towards. Things change fast at your age and you may find it hard to take such chances again in a few years’ time. So, take the opportunity, and make the most of it. I can’t imagine that you will spend much time wishing you hadn’t embraced the adventure.
Wilhemina
I HATE HELPING THE POOR
Dear Wilhemina
I regard myself as a lifelong socialist and Christian. I’ve always sought to apply the principles of justice, fairness, equity and redistribution in my personal life. Six months ago I started a new job in a large charity which, for the first time, allowed me to put these principles into action on a professional level. I was finally going to help the poor, care for outcasts and feel as though I was making a difference. Well, I may be making a difference (though I am not sure) but to my shame, I hate my job. Or, more precisely, I hate the daily contact with the people I want to help, and I seem to be acquiring every prejudice I used to despise—I find them ungrateful, lazy and feckless. And it’s all I can do not to scream, or quit, or both. How can I look at myself in the mirror in the morning feeling this way and then go to work?
TC
Dear TC
One piece of advice, then: don’t look at yourself in the mirror. Perhaps you’re spending too much time listening to yourself, checking your reactions against your extremely high standards, paying attention to the voices in your head, and not enough appraising the results of what you’re doing. It seems that you’re losing sight of why you wanted this job: to make a difference to others. You need to square the strange idealisation of those who are most deprived in our societies with the reality of their existence. Deprivation works on many levels, as you well know, and one of its results can be to make people seemingly ungrateful or oblivious to what is being done for them. Need I remind you of what you no doubt used to preach to others, which is that there are underlying causes for this?
And we need to be realistic. Many of us can be feckless, lazy and ungrateful; in any population you’ll come across quite a few people like this, and in particular when it comes to groups whose trust has often been systematically undermined. Despite the fact that you are there to help them, you might also represent a system that has let them down, or which they feel has let them down. Stick to your principles, repeat them like a mantra and look for results—that’s where you’ll find the satisfaction to keep going. As the French author Romain Gary once wrote, heroism lies in seeing the world as it truly is—and loving it nonetheless.
Wilhemina
HE WON’T GET RID OF HIS BEARD
Dear Wilhemina
I don’t know how to put this delicately: my husband has grown a beard and I hate it. I want him to shave it off and he won’t. What do I do? I feel as though I’m on the verge of being very nasty and telling him exactly why I can’t stand his awful, awful beard.
Outraged and itchy
Dear Outraged and itchy
Beards are a strange thing. CS Lewis once noted that they seem to be disagreeable to nearly all females—and yet! Two responses spring to mind. The first is adolescent, and probably not terribly good advice: you could tell him that, since he’s apparently oblivious to your needs, you’ll be oblivious to his—stop shaving your legs, for example, or other things you may do to make yourself attractive. You would need to make sure that this strategy wouldn’t involve punishing yourself as well, though. The second is a little more grown up. Park some of that frustration and ask why he grew it—and is continuing to despite your protestations. Is he doing it to annoy you? If so, why?
I’m reminded of a passage from the wonderful John Updike. Make of it what you will: “The scissors cut the long-grown hair, the razor scrapes the remnant fuzz. Small-jawed, weak-chinned, bug-eyed, I stare at the forgotten boy I was.”
Wilhemina
Send your problems—in confidence—to wilhemina@prospect-magazine.co.uk
