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" I felt like a racehorse in a world without racetracks or a  champion college footballer suddenly confronted by Wall Street and a business suit, his days of glory shrunk to a little gold cup on his mantel with a date engraved on it like the on a tomb stone. 

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.

From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig Ee Gee, the amazing editor , and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond  and above these figs  were many more figs that I couldn't quit make out.

I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death just because i couldn't make up my mind which of the figs i would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant loosing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and one by one, the plopped to the ground at my feet.."

The Bell Jar By Sylvia Plath