Does American Society Demand Too Much Of Us?

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April 10, 2008

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NOTE: This was actually written a couple years ago or so. While I still mostly agree with it, some of the biting attitudes of cynicism are no longer with me and there are certain small details I no longer believe. The bottom line is that we cannot be everything to everybody, so stop trying. The more vibrantly you exist in life, the more people who will be offended. Don’t fight it, just realize it and live with it. It all comes down to priorities and what is most important to each of us in life. You are the only one that can give your life meaning; no one else or nothing else can do it for you. Ok, now for the original piece…

My long-time friend Jason Summers recently wrote a piece where he discussed his views on being a “Superhero of Society” (dubbed this for reasons we will soon get to.) Since this is something that affects every single one of us every single day of our lives, I wanted to take some time out to talk about The Unreasonable Demands of Society…in America, at least.

What we’re mainly talking about here is the issue of society expecting a vastly overwhelming quantity of things from us, all while paradoxically fleecing from us the very time and resources required to fulfill these expectations.

And I’m not talking about weird, specialized concerns that only some people would agree on, either. We’re talking about ideas that most anyone off the street would consider virtuous. Striving for excellence in one’s career, staying “informed” on issues all the way from local to worldwide so that “informed” decision can be made (not to mention knowing all the proper philosophy necessary to judge and decide), and social responsibility to ‘giving back’ to our communities through various means are only a small fraction of them.

This is not to mention, of course, the personal virtues of spending time with family, friends, and relatives, being a good husband/wife (or even knowing enough or being lucky enough to find your mate to begin with), and responsibilities to our children, if we have children. THEN…on top of ALL THAT, we have the necessities of everyday life which include washing clothes, cooking, cleaning (ourselves and the home), and shopping for everyday needs. And even with some of these things, the devil’s not just in performing them, but in the details of performing them well.

Happiness and contentment is the real issue here. If you are someone who is happy or content with their life and/or job, then you have even more reason to be that way because you walk among the extremely small minority. Most people here in America hate their jobs and are largely unsatisfied with their lives in general. The contemporary phrases “Prozac Nation” and “Fast Food Nation” come to mind. While we’re busy taking care of maintaining life, life is passing us by with its own plans. It happens to FAR too many people caught up in the fuss.

I think where it all starts to begin is in our school days. The ‘educational system’, producing rubber stamp images of people and being screwed up enough internally as it is (the subject of another article at another time) begins to tout the Master Agenda early on. Three years before graduating (usually much more), we begin to be indoctrinated into the “you gotta do things the certain way we tell you to or you’ll be a hopeless failure and have a poor quality of life” (a.k.a. the post-secondary and college systems, which thrive on a combination herd-mentality and fear). Most students are not ready to make choices (especially financial ones) at age 18 that will impact literally the rest of their lives. Even a lot of those who do tell you they know exactly what they want at this point in time will end up changing their minds and making loads of costly mistakes later. Any successful person will tell you that making mistakes and dealing with and learning from them is a good thing. And it is. However, the kinds of mistakes in choice of vocation and/or financial choices that will sap away many of the best (young) years of one’s life to pay off and adjust from are the kinds of mistakes that can be easily prevented. But the widely trusted educational establishment cranks out the pre-canned, pre-processed information year after year, thus creating the young person’s initial plunge into the endless cycle of “spend to live, live to pay off debt, and hope for a better future ’someday’.”

Pardon me for saying, but that sounds like an awful way to live. Yet we are promised that if we do things this certain way, we will be rewarded in the end. The end? Why not now? Is it really that impossible to live the kind of live you want right now, while you’re still young enough to enjoy it? Or do we have to be slaves to finance companies and the government our whole lives so we can get our chocolate-chip cookie we call “retirement” later on?

I think you and I both know what the answer to that question SHOULD be. But…”There just simply isn’t enough time in a day”, right?…or is there?

“I just can’t do it all” - Too many people say the poisonous word “can’t” and stop right there. The reason why “can’t” is poison is because it instantly stops us from further thinking and sets up a self-imposed roadblock to success.

I believe a big portion of the problem comes from people not knowing the things that will truly make them happy, not knowing how to achieve them, or both. (Perhaps the timelessness of “knowing oneself”… or rather, “making oneself”) If you find yourself in this situation, by all means, do not merely do as others do, thinking they know something you don’t. Don’t succumb to the sensationalism and fear-based “news” programs. And especially don’t let anyone tell you that you are only worth as much as that piece of paper you got after college. If you believe you are a loser, you’ll be a loser; but if you believe you’re more than that; a winner, and something special, it’s the first step to freedom and peace of mind. Two years of figuring out what it is you want in life and not doing anything else is worth more than the thirty years a lot of people spend trying to figure it out in their spare time while working and tending to the cares of society. Your happiness and contentment are yours and yours alone. You must find your own happiness and own every ounce of it.

Timelessly meaningful tips on this can be found by reading the works of Dale Carnegie, one of the “old pros” who lived back during a time when more helpful and sincere books were written.

One theme I remember from Dale Carnegie that stands out right now as I’m writing this was that real life…real “living” is in the day-to-day, minute-by-minute…doing what you enjoy and the things that matter most to you in life. You can have a thousand houses, but can only enjoy one bed per night. There is a story elsewhere on my site that talks about focusing on the “big stones in your jar” - that is, the most important things and goals. Make a list of the things you would regret doing if you died suddenly and didn’t get to do anything else. Then set out to DO them. Every single day should be spent doing or working on doing everything on that list. If your time isn’t spent that way, you’re wasting time and life will sneak past you.

When people look back on gifts they’ve received over the years, we usually don’t remember the ones that did not have much meaning beyond the holiday or event they were meant to represent. When dad looks back on his life, he is not going to remember all the neckties you got him for Father’s Day…but he will always remember the love that was shown to him or conveyed through a meaningful gift or time well spent together fishing or some other such thing. Those kinds of things cannot be purchased, but they are freely available to everyone, no matter who you are. And the more you give them, the more likely everyone else will catch on and give them back to you.

Famous salesman and speaker Zig Ziglar said that if you want to have everything you want in life, all you have to do is help enough other people get what they want in life.

Since we are alive, we must do things in line with living. There will be plenty of time later for behaving as the dead do. The apathetic, the unmoving, the drones are already dead regardless of what they’re working for. Working with only the end in mind is a huge mistake that will waste many precious years of life you have. You can’t spend all your time working toward a goal or set of goals without enjoying the “getting there” process; the process in between - because that’s where ‘living’ and ‘life’ occurs.

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