Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda

In one of the most famous scenes in film history, Terry Malloy (superbly played by Marlon Brando)tells his brother Charley Malloy (equally well played by Rod Steiger) that his destiny was altered because of a fixed fight in Elia Kazan’s film, On the Waterfront. “You don’t understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am. Let’s face it. It was you, Charley.” Every night, millions of people are telling themselves some form of this speech and saying it as heartfelt as Brando when he delivered this speech in 1954.

We spend millions of dollars on self-help books. We watch Oprah and her disciples on Super Soul Sunday. We spend even more millions on life coaches and seminars and workshops that are supposed to help us figure out why we’re here and what we’re supposed to do. We pray, we meditate, we practice yoga, and we do all sorts of things trying to find out what we could be, would be and should be.

Unfortunately there is no quick answer to those questions. Just as Rod Steiger looked at Brando with a mixture of sadness and sorrow, so do we when ask ourselves those questions or when we speak to ourselves in the middle of the night decrying what we could have done or would have done or should have done.

Living in the world of coulda, woulda, shoulda is thankless. It’s a waste of time when we have so little time on this earth to do what we could, would and should. I’m not saying that we should shy away from asking the big questions. I’m saying asking the questions and not doing anything to answer the questions is futile.

I don’t believe we should just rush out and do something just to be doing something. I think we should all give these questions some thought. Each of us is here for a reason and it is never a useless activity attempting to figure out your purpose. However, there are some things we all could do and should do regardless of what our individual calling might be.

We know as humans that we are our brothers’ keeper. We know we should help people in any way possible regardless of race, ethnicity, sexual identification and the like. We see the homeless in our cities and we should advocate for them to have shelter. We know our children are getting a piss poor education and we should be demanding that the educational system be better and we should follow through on those demands. We know our healthcare system is screwed and we should be doing everything possible to make sure that everyone has access to good health care. We know our elderly are mistreated and we should do whatever is necessary for our seniors to spend the rest of their lives well and safe. We know that equal rights under the law are not equal and we should make our government make it right. We are engaging in unconscionable actions around the world and we should make our representatives accountable. We know what we should do and we know what we could do.

We don’t have to keep repeating that memorable speech made by Brando some 60 years ago. We are not bums. We may not be able to answer the questions satisfactorily to everyone who asks. But we do know that what we are all called to do is to be somebody who cares for humankind and then is willing to do something to make life better for humankind. Then we can say with conviction “I am somebody.”