Feeling lost?

 



    This morning began much like every other morning; getting ready for work and dropping by my local coffee shop drive through just before heading into the office for my daily fix. Maybe the groggy fog that hangs around my head at this time of the morning had lifted for the day, but it was this morning I realized a pattern. I have come to the conclusion that the days of service, even with a feigned smile, have long since come and gone. A scenario: I, as the consumer, ask my server whom I've seen on a daily basis for the last 7 months, " And how are you doing this morning?" I retrieve a hesitant grimace, and between gritted teeth," Oh, you know, not to bad.." My spidey senses are tingling at the broad hint of sarcasm. Your coffee gal looks at you, and whispers hanging half out the window," I hate this place. I hate what I've become. Take me with you." I think we can all relate to the dejected coffee girl. All day long she practices politeness and attempts to smile with a crooked grin, and her internal dialogue is probably a broken record of, " Please, kill me now."

  So I spent my morning ranting to whomever I could about the ever widening spread of job dissatisfaction in America. There is the sad knowledge of the truth in saying most Americans are pining away, faithfully hating their jobs. There is no longer a sense of personal satisfaction in an honest days work. No sense of belonging, appreciation, or value. No sense of meaningful exhaustion when we teeter to the punch clock at the end of our 10 hour days, or even a sense of financial security. We are all slaving away for companies where we have become even more so just a number on the pay roll they would get rid of if they could. We're all punching the clock for minimum wage, living pay check to pay check with no room for advancement. How many houses are up for sale on your block these days?

  But this isn't about a collapsing economy or a monstrous national deficit or the housing market. These things are unchanging for a single person, and apparently an entire nation. It will take a long time for America to dig itself out of that hole. Instead, I choose to focus on something we as individuals can change to enhance our daily lives. This is about personal dissatisfaction  and unhappiness outside the financial realm. No one seems to remember The Beetles: Money can't buy me love. Neither can money buy any of us the kind of happiness that carries us through our day to day grind. Not happiness or even long term contentedness. Maybe we are Americans are focusing on the wrong things all together.

  As far as our generation is concerned ( Anyone between the age of 20-30 specifically ) were pretty much screwed. Our parents have been telling us that for years, but were coming into the full scaled realization of it now. Society gave us the fuzzy end of the lollipop before we where old enough to recognize that we'd gotten jacked of something staple to every other generation. We have no opportunity for true satisfaction. We seem only to be able to derive satisfaction, albeit temporarily, from our own selfishness and materialism.

  My grandparents could support 6 children and a hobby farm in the country on just my grandfathers paycheck. My grandfather was not a doctor or a lawyer, he was a plumber. My mothers generation could still afford to put themselves through college, have children and obtain a modest house on a modest income.Then you have us; thank you corporate America, it's all downhill from here. Our 401k accounts and social security will keep us in substandard nursing homes for a year or two and then they'll be dumping our bodies into mass burial pits like Nazi Germany. Our children won't even have the joy of resenting having to take care of us because we won't have them.

  No one has marriage as a priority anymore. And it seems that those who do get married before their 30's, which used to be the standard, end up divorced three times over. Why is that, especially in an economy where financial security almost requires a secondary income? TV says financial troubles destroy relationships and Im sure there is some truth to that. More over, people have become selfish and sources in themselves. Everyone wants to promote themselves as a star. Parents pushing their five year old child as a pop prodigy. In so doing we are bypassing being the star in our own interpersonal relationships.

  It is disconcerting to me to think that anyone would want to be placed in the public eye simply to be scrutinized. This is sheer masochism. Donning mask after mask of artificiality to please strangers merciless nature to judge whatever they are presented with, just to scramble our way to the top. Your public exists in a love/hate relationship with a person, or rather " Characters," who is in the end completely fictitious. Your 15 minutes inevitably comes to a screeching halt when they've finished with you and replaced you with something fresher and more nubile. You fade away, and will you remember who you where? Or who you became to end up doing Neosporin commercials you had to fight tooth and nail for. I fail to see the point.

  Im feeling quite alone here in my grandmothers perception of living a good life in the limelight of, god willing, my husband and children. I have no desire whatsoever to compromise myself with grandiose delusions of fame and fortune. And it appears I am the only leaf still hanging onto this creaky old branch, my own idealistic reality.

  This steady decline into selfishness. Is it any wonder why so many people are unhappy? Trying to fill the void with self help books, medications, proposterously priced electronics and fashions, searching to create themselves? Or conform to some media induced idea that this is what you need to fit in and be happy? Try stopping and looking at the person next to you.You're feeling lost and without an identity that's really your own because you've cut off your own humanity. You are depriving yourself of one of your own most basic, vital needs: Emotional connectedness with another.

  People try to sustain themselves on themselves, running ragged in the rat race to attain possessions that are simply out of reach. Society has taught us through our childhood baby sitter and 21st century Baal, mass media, that all we need is money, fame and materialism to attain Nirvana. I don't know about all that. It seems to me that my grandmother was pretty happy simply to be surrounded by her children who loved her for exactly who she was. She seemed content to volunteer her time helping others and building towards her modest dreams with her husband.

  We've all gone wrong. Turn off your television, unplug your ipod and talk to the people around you. Do you really know who you're sitting next to or why you sat next to them? Why their even bothering to sit next to you? Maybe right now you have no one sitting next to you. Put aside your physical appearance for the moment, realistically they're irrelevant. Put aside who you may think you are as an individual, chances are your self evaluation is terribly skewed. Think about your interactions with others, really dissect them, and maybe you will better understand why you feel that absence.

  We must all, to some extent, be functioning on the baseline of knowing if someone treats us selflessly. Everyone wants selfless love, but it should not be because of a " The world revolves around me " or " I deserve it" mentality. We need to examine ourselves to really see if we are loving selflessly in return. Do onto others, treat as you wish to be treated. Don't lie to yourself, it only keeps the seat next to you empty and your heart emptier still.

  Where are your priorities? Maybe you find yourself empty, searching in the wrong spot, because they're out of order. You're just unable to recognize it.