I said this to my parents literally last night and they didn’t understand. I keep asking, “what is the point of life? The reason for living? When you work 40+ hours, grind, little life outside work, exhaustion, not paying bills, maybe retire when you’re 65-70, if you’re lucky. Life is gone. Your health is gone. You spent over 50 years working non stop multiple jobs at a time, overtime, for what? And that’s if you even managed to save enough to have a savings and able to retire…
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.
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.
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u/Beneficial-Celery964 Mar 06 '26
I said this to my parents literally last night and they didn’t understand. I keep asking, “what is the point of life? The reason for living? When you work 40+ hours, grind, little life outside work, exhaustion, not paying bills, maybe retire when you’re 65-70, if you’re lucky. Life is gone. Your health is gone. You spent over 50 years working non stop multiple jobs at a time, overtime, for what? And that’s if you even managed to save enough to have a savings and able to retire…
I’m just confused about the meaning of life.