Sometimes I wish the world could just stop for a moment. I wish I could hit pause. Pause the concerns, pause the anxieties, pause the sneaking suspicion that maybe I’m dropping the ball somewhere because it wouldn’t matter because the ball drop would be paused too.
It feels like ever since I maybe hit high school, life has been go go go. Vacations don’t even feel like relaxation because you would have to prep and plan for vacation, and then once you were on vacation, you had to do all the things and make sure you saw all the sights and make sure you relaxed on the beach and you hit the good restaurants. Then when you got home, you had to go back to work and of course your suitcase sat there for a week or two (*cough* month or two) because it was another To Do to unpack and clean up after a trip and in fact sometimes you just left your suitcase there in a grand rebellious revolt against more To Do’s (and so you could take “pre-packed” on your next trip…)
Anyway, I digress. I’m sitting here complaining about vacations and woe is me. I get it, it sounds really privileged. I understand and I agree.
Basically, life just starts to feel like a giant To Do list. Ok, go to school, finish school, how get a job, now do a really good job there, now get a different job so you can grow in your career, and by the way make sure you have hobbies and passions you’re doing on the side so you’re an interesting person and your work is not your identity, ok do that for a really long time, now save a bunch of money for retirement because the system won’t be able to provide for you so now you’re earning money not just for your life now but also for the life between when you retire and some estimated date when you’re gonna die, and for the house you can’t ever afford (how do people afford houses?!?!) and for a new car because your current one is really embarrassing and has that dent you made 2 weeks after you bought it….. and am I supposed to be married and have children by now? Wait, maybe it’s ok that I don’t and it’s just something programmed into me that I don’t really want? But what if I do want children and it becomes too late eventually???
And that’s just LIFE. Nevermind your job that you’re supposed to pretend you’re excited and passionate about. And maybe you once were at one time, but now you can’t even really do good at your job because whatever ambition or motivation or gung ho-ness you had just doesn’t exist anymore. You care about doing a good job, you want to be there for your teammates, but you just haven’t got anything left to give. It’s just not there. It’s not a job where you just clock in, complete the tasks and just get them done, and clock out. No, it’s a job where you have to come up with creative ideas, strategize, question each decision and make sure it’s really solid, and somehow a company has convinced you that you’re “important” and have some “essential” part of the puzzle which really just stresses you the fuck out, and then you have all the annoying people you have to deal with… then the obligatory team bonding events and all you want to do is just sleep and not have to stay present for every second of a Zoom meeting which really just feels like you’re meeting with your laptop. It’s EXHAUSTING.
I didn’t really expect this to turn into some sort of millennial start-up work culture rant. I don’t really know where I’m going with this. In fact, I’m too burnt out to even make sure this is a coherent essay with a clear story and start, middle, end. The fact is, I’M TIRED AND I WANT TO RETIRE RIGHT NOW.
Has anyone just given life a big F you and done whatever they wanted? Did they turn out ok and are now super happy with the life of their dreams that they waltzed into following the magical drum beat of their heart? Or did they fall into a pit of panic attacks as they realized they had no way to pay their rent and the 30 subscriptions they forgot they were subscribed to and then begged to be re-hired and then worked there for 30 years and then retired on their meager retirement account and told their grandchildren, “Life sucks and then you die” and then died?!??!