This American Life

Ok, forgive me if I come across as whiny, but…when did someone decide that in order to be considered successful one had to kill themselves working just to scrape by? I mean, how many people are actually ok with this much less happy with it? Does there come a point when people just accept it as how life is? Or are they taught not to expect anything more? And with our economy in the dumps when has it become more apparent that this system simply doesn’t work? I work 50 hours a week. On average I get 5-6 hours of sleep a night. A study reported that getting less than 8 hours actually means you’re killing yourself. Oh great. So if the stress doesn’t kill me, the lack of sleep will? Wonderful. I wonder why more people just don’t kill themselves right after they graduate college and save themselves 40-50 years of misery. I’ve gained 40lbs in the last 2 years. It’s the first time I’m really worried about my weight. I know it’s because I don’t move. I live out of my car and I eat out all the time. I know that the particular situation I’m in is a bad factor but I also know I’m not the only one who’s fallen victim. We have the most obese people in the world. I cannot believe that it’s because every one of those people are lazy slobs. As a nation, we only promote exercise (and diet) when we’re selling something. Is it a coincidence that healthier food is more expensive? I think not. If you don’t want to consume preservatives, you better pay up! It’s such an easy thing to fall into. Eat fast food! It’s nice and cheap! Now pay that gym membership to lose all the weight you just gained from it! Whatever money you have left pump into your SUV to keep you from walking anywhere and to keep you in this cycle.

We’ve become so ADHD and impatient in such a short time. We like to drive because we don’t have the time for any other way. We have too much other stuff to do. Only so many hours to enjoy after you get home from work. Now forget about even that if you’re married with kids. When we’re not running around like headless chickens we’re zoned into a screen (tv, monitor, silver) telling us what we need to buy to be happier, look younger, live easier. How ironic is it that after a commercial from McDonald’s we see the sticks (aka the height of beauty) parading around America’s Next Top Model? And before we know it half of our lives are spent before we finally open our eyes (the mid-life crisis). What the hell just happened? How did I get here? This isn’t how I envisioned life would be. I’m tired of people telling me to just shut up and do what I “need” to do. Sign up to a gym, count my calories and stop enjoying food, become a penny pincher, and oh yea be damn grateful I have a job at all.

But if I’ve ever been anything I’ve been a non-conformist. I’ve only lived this subscribed life for 15 months and I already want to wash my hands of it. Why can’t I just live a healthy life (mentally & physically) and not have to go out of my way to do so? It seems so counter intuitive! Ireland may not be anywhere close to this “great, best country” of the world but in my 4 months there I was smacked with a revelation. I didn’t need to stress and be swamped with anxiety in order to be productive. With a much smaller grocery store with only the essentials and preservative-free food I lost 10lbs. AND I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING DIFFERENTLY! Without a car, I didn’t walk any more than I had at MICA. Sure I went set-dancing once a week but slaving away on a treadmill it was not. Why is that such an antithesis to our way of doing things?

We really are the Nation of Consumption. And the worst part of it is the rest of the world thinks this is our choice. That we’re perfectly happy living this way. And we’re ridiculed for it. I refuse to believe I’m the only person who thinks about this, who’s been sucked into the vortex. Think what you will, judge as you will, but I feel trapped. I want to move now. Defer my loans, live as a poor student again and rely on my feet as my transportation. I want to dance for free, do yoga for free, enjoy life without a bloody dollar sign in front of it. How can we put a price on everything? How can we live with ourselves knowing that we’re obsessed with money, chasing that status of the worshipped celebrity? How can we tell our children that everything’s possible in America when 90% of them will see a mediocre paycheck and have to live paycheck-to-paycheck for the whole of their lives? Don’t tell me that, “Hey it’s better than a third world country, would you prefer that?” Well, let me ask you something: Say you’re a charity worker. In the last year you’ve served a week providing disaster relief in New Orleans and given a few pints of blood. Sure that’s hell of a lot more than most people do in their lifetime, but wouldn’t you want to try to work your hardest to provide as much help as you could? In other words, sure, other people have it worse but does that mean it’s ok to settle? To be great instead of fantastic? To be ok with not being the best we can be? Until we stop living to work and start actually making living a way of life we have not done enough. We are not good enough. And we need to push farther to progress. Now the only thing left is for us to snap out of our American Idol Wendy’s haze and realize it.