Thursday, February 26, 2009

Posting on a Soapbox



I have always been scared of leading a life of mediocrity or conformity. I grew up in a community where all the moms drove their Mercedes SUVs to take their kids to practice and all the dads drove their BMW 5 series to the office every morning. In my neighborhood it was customary to have 3 kids, a dog, and a horse or 2. The boys played baseball or football and the girls played soccer and later became cheerleaders. It was always so odd to me the way everybody worked so hard to be the best at being exactly the same as everybody else, just a little better. It’s just this ridiculous never ending cycle of monotonous BS.

People brand us with these labels early in life and from then on we ALL have these crazy expectations we are going to live up or live down. Jock, Nerd, Slacker, Overachiever, act accordingly and never change! Because if you do, what will the neighbors think!? What will your friends say!? Who will your friends be!?

My friends keep telling me how brave I am for the way I live my life. I have a lucrative degree from one of the top universities in the country and I could easily have a job tomorrow earning 6 figures with a company car and all the bells and whistles. This is supposed to be the DREAM! Big money, big house, BIG LIFE! Apparently I am super awesome because I can so easily turn my back on all that shit in pursuit of something else. What that something else is, I have no fucking clue! But whatever it is, it has to be better than the homogenized hermetically sealed suburban hell hole I am most definitely giving up.

My friends are beginning to FUCKING annoy me! I mean seriously. After awhile it gets old and it even begins to feel a little condescending! I mean honestly, the way I live isn’t really all that difficult. I made a decision to NOT be stuck in a life I am constantly regretting, and wishing everyday I had made a different choices when I was younger. ANYBODY can make the same choice, they just have to live with the consequences ie: give up the comforts of all their money and get ready for lots of FAILS and lots of UNCERTAINTY!

What I wish more than anything is that all my yuppie corporate America friends would quit telling me how much they wish they could live like I do. To me, its starting to sound like the guy who keeps telling his mistress how awful his wife is and how he’s planning on leaving her any day. He’s never going to leave her no matter how miserable he is or how bitchy his wife is because no matter how MISERABLE he is, he’s still comfortable! He knows what’s going to happen tomorrow and the day after that, and he’s never going to give it up for the unknown! No matter how tantalizing the alternative is… There’s a reason why the mistress isn’t the wife.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you think you are better than your friends for being different? You look down on things you don't agree with and they admire it. Which of you really needs to reevaluate their attitude?

John said...

That was an intense post! You are like a modern day prophet or something. I loved what you had to say about suburbia and I agree.

I have never heard this cover before. I like it! Its from Weeds right?

Anonymous said...

What I recommend is you find a furniture catalogue and figure out which dinning room set really “defines” you. Then go from there.

Life isn’t real until the things you own, start owning you. What’s wrong with becoming a copy of a copy of a copy? That’s the beauty of suburbia and mortgages.

Mortgages are modern day slavery, invented by capitalist to keep the masses working at meaningless jobs their entire lives.

RGB said...

Furniture from a catalog!? You have got to be kidding me! I have a very nice dining room set. It cost me $400 in materials and I built and designed the table myself while my aunt built and designed the chairs. Everything I own I either inherited from a family member or I made it/it was made for me. Catalogs give me hives...

Bold oy! said...

I know exactly what you are saying.
I broke off a year after graduating from college to become an "artist", meaning: to do what I wanted without having to account for it.
I never regretted it one second :)