I lived my life for someone else
It usually surfaces late. Years went into a parent's business, a partner's career, a boss's big project. Then something small happens, a missing thank-you or a careless remark, and the anger that comes up is far too large for the moment. It feels like it has been waiting.
Anton Chekhov wrote a play about that anger. It is called "Uncle Vanya".
The estate and the professor
Ivan Voitski, Uncle Vanya, has run a country estate for most of his adult life. The money goes to his brother-in-law, Professor Serebrakoff, a famous man in the city. Vanya lives cheaply so the professor can write.
Then the professor retires and comes to live on the estate. Up close he is ordinary. He complains about his gout and lectures on art he does not seem to feel. The great work turns out to be quite modest.
The bill
In the third act the professor proposes selling the estate. Vanya, who has kept it going, finally speaks:
"For twenty-five years I have managed this place, and have sent you the returns from it like the most honest of servants"
— Anton Chekhov, "Uncle Vanya", Act III
He lists the salary, the missing thanks, the years. Every line is true. Yet the professor never asked for a devoted servant. He took what came and did not look closely. Vanya chose the idol himself and then sent the idol the bill.
What the choice saved him
Living for someone else's greatness has a hidden benefit. For twenty-five years Vanya did not have to decide what his own life was for. The professor's books answered that question for him. When the books turned out ordinary, the question came back, and it came back unanswered.
Waiting for a real life that never starts is a related trap, and it has its own page. Here the life did start. It was simply handed to someone else.
What the play leaves
Chekhov does not take Vanya's side or the professor's. He leaves a question for anyone who recognises the resentment: whom did I make the reason for my life, and what did that spare me from deciding?
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