I bet this morning, around 7 am you wake up , eat a nutritious breakfast , drink Jamacain blue mountain coffee and get in to a Luxery SUV you bought new off the lot. No worry of engine failure for several years. Then you drive a bit and walk in to a nice office building with a friendly security guard that knows you by name.
And all day, every day, you can have conversations about friends, family, business and money. Talk all day with people that understand you and you can all frolic like baby deer around the office. Everyone is happy, successful and wins.
When you get home there are real human beings there. Walking and talking. People who's eyes you can look in to.
How very lucky.
I woke up at 6:45. Dragged myself out of bed amidst all the aches and pains it requires just to stand up. House is empty. I watched TV for an hour trying to screw up the will to go through another day. No breakfast, no coffee. I climbed into my brand new Mustang that I bought off the lot with 0 miles on it and no worry of engine failure for several years. Drove for an hour and 15 minutes to a seen-better-days office building with no security guard.
All day, I'll answer 1,001 stupid questions and solve every problem everyone in the building has. The minute ANYTHING stops working the way it should or any employee needs to deviate course one iota from their everyday duties, rather than attempt to fix the problem, they'll run to me exasperated and beg me to fix whatever it is causing the issue. I'll spend all day, frustrated and annoyed but unable to voice/show it, doing this (it's happened three times since I started typing this response.) I won't have one conversation that isn't work related. No one in this building knows/understands me at all. If you polled them, to a man/woman, they would probably say I am humorless and severe (the FFA knows quite differently.) No one here is happy or particularly successful. I don't really care much for that term, because what comprises "success" is highly subjective and varies from person to person.
When I get home, the house will be empty. At some point thereafter, my wife will get home. Some days, she's happy and we have a nice conversation. Other days, she's depressed and angry and we don't talk all that much. Either way, within an hour, she'll be doing some housework or in the bedroom watching dreck like E! News while I am in the living room watching sports. Some days, we sit and talk through her various family crises and I'm right back into problem solving mode. Then, she'll go to bed and I spend about an hour wondering how long I could live if I sold everything I owned, bought a van with a mattress in the back and a camping stove and just drove around the country drinking beer and seeing the world before I dropped dead.
Then, I get into bed, try to find a position that doesn't aggravate my multiple herniated discs in my back and pray for a few hours of dreamless sleep before an unconscious twist or roll causes pain like a knife being jammed into my back wakes me up. At 6:45, the alarm goes off and I do this all over again.
When Saturday comes, I spend the whole day doing yard work, or fixing/cleaning things in my nice big house, cleaning the pool, running errands, etc. Maybe we'll go out to eat on Saturday night. You'll see me pulling up to your restaurant in a new car and get out wearing nice clothes. I'll come in and order whatever I want off the menu because I have the money to do that. I'll smile and laugh and enjoy that one hour a week and you'll look at me and say : "This guy has it all figured out." You'll probably curse me under your breath and envy that I have everything while you have nothing. Then, I'll get up and drive home and spend the rest of that evening wishing I was young and unencumbered again. That I could pick up at any time and go anywhere I wanted, do anything I wanted. That the world was fresh and new again, full of infinite possibilities. That I wasn't a slave to a wife and a mortgage and a group of employees that rely on me. I'll wish I had no house and no money and no responsibilities. I'll wish every friend I have wasn't saddled with families or wives that keep their bollocks in her purse. I'll wistfully pine for bygone days of vomiting off of boardwalk rides and into garbage cans, of taking psychedelics and walking around with 2 dollars and a pack of Marlboros in my pocket, all while you sit home with most of the things I want, wanting what
I have. Or at least thinking you do.
Don't dissect this, pointing out all the reasons why you have it so much worse than I do. Just get the moral of the story.
