Everyone keeps asking me, “What’s next?” What college, what major, what internship, what job, what city? They tell me what I should do. They tell me that if I don’t follow a certain formula then I’ll be hopeless. They tell me that I’m not good enough, that I won’t be good enough. But we’re not all born to do the same thing. We don’t all fit into the same corporate box. I was not born to be molded into a suit, plastered into a cubicle, writing my agenda down onto post-it notes. I cannot live my life based off of the boxes of a planner. I cannot color-code what I plan to do that week; I prefer to be surprised by what I end up doing, making it up day by day, an endless stream of adventure and adrenaline flowing through my veins like the never-ending coffee cups that gets you through work.
A stereotypical, 9-to-5 life has never appealed to me. I cannot fathom the idea of staring blankly at a computer screen for eight hours, going home to dinner, some recreational TV time, then bed, just to wake up the next morning and do it all again for four more days that week.
I understand working for a family. I understand trying to satisfy the needs that corporate America has created. But that life doesn’t understand me.
I require movement. I require excitement. I require stimulation.
When we were younger, we were told we could be anything, we could do anything. We were promised the world. Our minds were brainwashed with the notion that any dreams were within our reach. We were promised travel, we were taught truth, we were shown endless possibilities. However, the older we got, it seemed the fewer options we were given. Dreams that were once encouraged were then squandered, replaced with more practical ideas. Adventure was replaced with stability. Zest with comfortability. Everything in our lives was downsized.
As I write this, as I ponder this idea, I think of a quote from one of my favorite films, “Fight Club”. Tyler Durden is walking around the basement of the bar, preaching, “I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.”
Life isn’t meant to be spent at a desk all day, hunched over a keyboard, basking in the fluorescent glow of a computer. There is so much beauty to be seen, to be appreciated, and we rationalize that by working 9-to-5s we are saving up so that one day we can go out and appreciate the world outside of our cubicle, outside of our suburbia, but at the end of the day these just seem to be lies that we tell ourselves. I have seen far too many souls swallowed by the middle class ideals, their spirits caged by white picket fences. Some may dream of a life where they work like a dog for eight hours, constantly trying to break the next tax bracket. And that’s OK, if that’s really what you want. That’s OK, really, if you’re enjoying what you’re doing.
I’ve just witnessed too many people doing it because it’s their expectation. I hear too many sighs, grunts, and complaints because people are just doing what they’re told to do in order to make money. They sacrifice their dreams to attain money. They decide to be an engineer over a history teacher because society told them being an engineer was a more glamorous lifestyle.
People make excuses for me, saying that I just run my race slower than everyone else, but what if I’m not even running a race? Why do I have to be entered into this rat race anyways? Isn’t the point of life to slow down, find what you enjoy, and figure life out based off of what you find you love? That’s always the advice that elderly people have to give. That their biggest regret always ends in giving up on their dreams and giving into the world’s way of thinking. So maybe I’m actually headed down the right trail, but rather than be applauded for it, I’m looked down upon for it because it’s not a trail that’s been previously blazed.
Let me live in the oblivion of my future. Allow me to live in the now, the spectacular now. Let me drown in it.
