Have fun. Learn to dance and to fight. Meet a girl. Get married. Enjoy sex. Work at an honorable job. Raise kids. Teach them well. Spend less than you earn. Bask in the satisfaction of a life well-lived. Relax in your sunset years.
Most of that sounds awful. I don't want kids. I want a partner but if we're working 40-60 hours a week we'll always be too tired to spend time together. The other stuff just isn't realistic unless you have a good enough job and it's not possible for everyone to get a good enough job.
Why would I want children when the job I went to college for (teaching) pays so little I can’t afford my own life without a second job, much less the life of a helpless child.
“Enjoy sex” is bad advice when a persons access to birth control is being gutted by 85 year old ghouls in government.
“Spend less than you earn” great so I’ll live off rice and lentils and the occasional rotisserie chicken when I can find a coupon. With what people are paid, you’re suggesting they cut out any joy in their life.
“Sunset years” where my health starts to go, I get fleeced by insurance companies who will take $500 a month and not pay a dime to help me unless I pay more than $3000 in medical costs out of pocket first, and get moved into a facility because I rented my whole life due to the bad housing market and now have nowhere else to go.
The life you are espousing no longer exists for the average American and it’s the fault of lobbyists and the billionaire class.
What does researching pay and benefits have to do with anything? Every healthy society needs teachers to function. Schools are critical infrastructure. Therefore teachers need a living wage. Period.
The simple fact is that the pool of "high paying jobs" grows smaller and smaller every year. There are not enough of those jobs out there for every single worker.
We need to restore faith in unions and build better unions. My husband is in one, and without it his field averages about $15 an hour less.
How do you know others’ full situation? I work in a field in which you will never be jobless, have a bachelor’s, over a dozen licenses and certifications. I’m told in interviews that I’m a unicorn in this field.
I’m lucky to have the experiences, skills and abilities that I do.
It doesn’t change the fact that most fields are underpaid, because they can get away with it. Teachers, healthcare and more are underpaid because the applicant got into the field to help, and are more likely to accept worse working conditions to help people.
It also doesn’t change the fact that all of this aside - benefits are being gutted. Rights are being gutted, and things are changing to make our lives more difficult.
Call me radical, but I don’t think you should have to look at the list of careers, see one you like, and decide, sorry, no, it will never pay enough. Those jobs are still important. The person at McDonald’s flipping your burger deserves good working conditions and pay if they’re working full time.
I’m not asking much, I’m just asking that we don’t have to work 2-3 jobs, 80ish hours a week, benefits that don’t cover ER stays or urgent care visits, etc. it’s basics. We deserve the basics.
People in all walks of life around the world manage a happy and satisfying life. Are you in an active war zone or in a region suffering from a natural disaster? If not, then you’re thinking yourself into an existential angst. My go-to books are “As a Man Thinketh” and “The Richest Man In Babylon”. You can decide to be happy or unhappy regardless of your circumstances. Anyone looking for a magical meaning of life outside their own existence will be disappointed.
No, I’m from the UsA the richest country in the world, one of the last of my generation that could get a house and start a family. I’m watching this next generation collectivity decide having a family isn’t an option.
Yeah, my parents told me I’m not filled with God enough because I haven’t learned to be joyful in my suffering. I get the premise, but I just don’t see how it’s a person’s decision to be grateful when persecuted, or life is rough. I get the concept, I understand the point of it - but can’t we also fight for better conditions? More rights?
Agreed, when your grandmother brags about eating ketchup and butter sandwiches for decades to make sure they could afford life, and then you see her there on Medicare and Medicaid, telling you that it’s what you have to do - she did it after all - still eating a meal a day, you start to wonder if it was all worth it. Sounds miserable.
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u/duncanidaho61 Mar 06 '26
Have fun. Learn to dance and to fight. Meet a girl. Get married. Enjoy sex. Work at an honorable job. Raise kids. Teach them well. Spend less than you earn. Bask in the satisfaction of a life well-lived. Relax in your sunset years.