The world's full of crap
I realized today how what I've thought for a while is connected to something far greater. You see, my dear friends, we have too much shit. Shit we don't need. Shit we shouldn't have wasted money on and shit we need to just throw out because all it does is clutter our lives. What's even worse is that businesses have made a killing selling you and I shit. Do me a favor next time you're at a store that sells housewares. Go to the section with the kitchen appliances/accessories/etc and just look around. There is TONS of shit you'll never use. "OoooOOOoooOOohhh! A garlic press!!!" Or you could just chop it with a knife on the one day every five years that you actually need to interact with real garlic. But we see it and it's gadgety and you ask yourself only one of the two questions you should ever ask yourself before you buy something. In your head you go, "Whoa! That thing looks pretty cool...would I want to use that?" Of fucking course you would, it looks cool. Americans LOVE gadgets. Anything gadgety will sell, it's a fact. Sometimes these gadgets are pretty awesome and worthwhile (iPod), and sometimes they're just cool-LOOKING but a complete waste (garlic press, that stupid thing to wash your car on the informercials, the Magic Bullet--and I mean the food processor, not the other item that should be nowhere near a mouth...).
So you ask yourself if you'd want to use it. And the answer is yes. And in your mind you concoct this GRANDE (with an 'e' cause I'm making it French for emphasis but anyways) GRANDE scheme of things you're going to do with your new garlic press. You'll press tons of garlic and start making real meals and maybe the governor will stop by and be impressed with the hint of garlic in your finely crafted four course presentation that in reality wouldn't have been possible without the wonderful gift of the garlic press. In reality, you're never going to use the fucking garlic press. It's gonna sit in your silverware drawer while your lazy ass eats Easy Mac, and three years later when your buddy is looking for a fork he'll hold it up and go, "Hey, what's this?," and you'll say, "It's a garlic press...you can have it if you want it, I never use it."
Which brings me to the second question you should ask yourself before you actually by anything: "Yeah, it's cool and I'd want to use it...but do I NEED it?" You'll find a lot more "No" answers for that question. You should answer no more than a few times. You don't want a life cluttered with shit, trust me. It just takes money away from you for stuff you don't need that will just annoy you when you see it because it ends up representing a dream (even if it's a little one of garlic press wonder) that you didn't fulfill.
What I realized is that this idea is directly connected to our jobs. So often now we strive to get a job with a higher paycheck, rather than doing something we really love. National surveys show that as many as 80% of people in the workforce are unhappy. Why? Why go for a higher paycheck rather than something you really care about? You can blame society, cost of living, student loans, blah blah blah. There will always be an excuse. But keep in mind that our culture has taught us to separate work from passion. To go for the higher paycheck because the higher paycheck lets us buy more shit that we don't need. This is essentially a sacrifice of your living soul. I'm not being overdramatic. If you take a job you aren't truly passionate about for the higher paycheck, you are signing away your emotional health. You will spend AT LEAST 40 hours a week in that job--basically your entire day sans the evening and night. At least eight consecutive hours at a place you don't like doing stuff you don't care about praying for lunch to come quicker or that Mark from next door wants to go for a smoke. Stop cluttering your life with shit, start doing what you care about, and get on with it.
So you ask yourself if you'd want to use it. And the answer is yes. And in your mind you concoct this GRANDE (with an 'e' cause I'm making it French for emphasis but anyways) GRANDE scheme of things you're going to do with your new garlic press. You'll press tons of garlic and start making real meals and maybe the governor will stop by and be impressed with the hint of garlic in your finely crafted four course presentation that in reality wouldn't have been possible without the wonderful gift of the garlic press. In reality, you're never going to use the fucking garlic press. It's gonna sit in your silverware drawer while your lazy ass eats Easy Mac, and three years later when your buddy is looking for a fork he'll hold it up and go, "Hey, what's this?," and you'll say, "It's a garlic press...you can have it if you want it, I never use it."
Which brings me to the second question you should ask yourself before you actually by anything: "Yeah, it's cool and I'd want to use it...but do I NEED it?" You'll find a lot more "No" answers for that question. You should answer no more than a few times. You don't want a life cluttered with shit, trust me. It just takes money away from you for stuff you don't need that will just annoy you when you see it because it ends up representing a dream (even if it's a little one of garlic press wonder) that you didn't fulfill.
What I realized is that this idea is directly connected to our jobs. So often now we strive to get a job with a higher paycheck, rather than doing something we really love. National surveys show that as many as 80% of people in the workforce are unhappy. Why? Why go for a higher paycheck rather than something you really care about? You can blame society, cost of living, student loans, blah blah blah. There will always be an excuse. But keep in mind that our culture has taught us to separate work from passion. To go for the higher paycheck because the higher paycheck lets us buy more shit that we don't need. This is essentially a sacrifice of your living soul. I'm not being overdramatic. If you take a job you aren't truly passionate about for the higher paycheck, you are signing away your emotional health. You will spend AT LEAST 40 hours a week in that job--basically your entire day sans the evening and night. At least eight consecutive hours at a place you don't like doing stuff you don't care about praying for lunch to come quicker or that Mark from next door wants to go for a smoke. Stop cluttering your life with shit, start doing what you care about, and get on with it.