A Life Unsegmented

As a general rule of thumb, I just assume I over-think everything because, to be honest, I do. If I don’t stop myself then I’m just going to wind up paralyzed by my own circular logic and I’d never get anything done. Even though I know this about myself, there is one thing that I cannot make myself buy into no matter how hard I try. What I struggle with is the idea of a career path that just pays the bills.

Is it presumptuous of me to believe that most people who are in a long term jobs have given up on their dreams? I’ve worked in a corporate setting and I know that most people there do not enjoy their job. Now I’m not naive enough to think that I can make money without ever having to do something I don’t want to do, but I’m not willing to work 40 plus hours a week at a job solely so I can afford the things to make me feel alive on the weekend. Some people can segment their lives into little boxes labeled work, play, fulfilling, necessary, spiritual etc. until they feel like the food pyramid of their lives has all it’s necessary requirements but I don’t think I am one of them.

What scares me the most is that everyone has probably felt and said all of this during their mid 20s. That one day I am going to lose the hope that I can be fulfilled by all that I do with my life, not just my free time, and when I do I’m going to give into the idea that a steadily growing 401k, a new car, and a house in the suburbs is worth giving up 40 years of my life to something, to a corporation, to a business model, to anything outside of my own soul and the people around me. I’m a product of all the fairy tales, all the children’s stories, all the fables that tell me to go after my dreams but as I see the world we live in, it’s like adults who tell these stories don’t really believe them. The parents’ who tell their kids that they can be anything they want when they grow up go to jobs they despise and then when the kid gets out of college they want them to get a high paying job just like them.

I guess I’m reaching the point where I have choose between surrendering to the bitter taste of cynicism or keep fighting for what I believe to be right. The real question is how do I fight this when there is so much standing in my way? Since I don’t know what my perfect life is, how do I fight for it? That’s a subject for a later blog post, I guess. I’ve rambled enough for this one.

The Things We Do

I went out for St. Patrick’s day last night because I didn’t have a good enough excuse not to. If I had just followed my instinct I would have bought a bottle of Jameson and watched Mad Men. So I got to the bar and immediately a bulgy, toothless woman in her forties walks up to me. Wearing a green sports bra and green booty shorts, she opens her mouth and asks for some beer money. I gag as the smell of sour milk and cheap alcohol seems to stick in my throat. Tossing her a dollar, I run to the other end of the bar which of course only makes her follow me. I squeeze up next to another guy who thankfully distracts her long enough for me to get a pitcher and bolt.

As I sat drinking my beer, I could see this woman dancing, yelling, bargaining for drinks, and all around being belligerent. It struck me that if she had been my own age, nothing she was doing would have offended me, except for the bad breath, but that’s just always offensive. I even looked around the place and could see a few hipster kids behaving almost exactly like her but none of us at my table even mentioned them. We were more concerned with how sad and pathetic this lady was. But why?

Why is it sad and pathetic for one person to act like an drunken idiot, but not for another? Should age, wealth, or possessions like a bed or new clothes really be the difference between what we deem acceptable behavior? We don’t do this with most things. No one says that a young person volunteering at a food shelter is better than an older. Or that a young, wealthy college kid who commits murder is less offensive than the same crime done by a homeless fifty year old. I know that getting drunk on St. Patty’s day is neither a crime nor charity, it just seems to me that we place far less emphasis on the actions of a person and far too much on factors that should be irrelevant. If it’s pathetic for a homeless man to get blackout drunk during the middle of the week, why is it that someone my age can do it and most people just shrug it off, or even encourage it as blowing off steam?

Now I’m not trying to put down alcohol, I like to drink and dance and have a great time. I’m just struggling with the fact that the things I do are not concrete. If I look back at a drunken St. Patrick’s day, will it be a good memory five years from now? Will it be embarrassing? Or will it someday be a regret? Will the good things I do deteriorate the same way? Will handing a beggar a few dollars be a good thing? How about if I see a story in the news where a drunk hobo fell asleep on some railroad tracks? Will my good deed be as clean then?

I know that I’m over thinking this but I feel like this is something that’s ignored. We go through lives copying the actions of our peers around us, assuming they are right. It’s only if we see someone acting outside of their age group that we instantly know they are doing something reprehensible. Good deeds should not be limited by our age or circumstances and I think the same is true of bad ones as well. I honestly don’t know what the overall point of this whole rant is. You would think that after all this I would have a conclusion. It just seems to me that we need to really think about what we do with our lives instead of just moving with the pack.