Some random observations on life and such. I’ve changed so much in the past couple of years. Things I used to want I no longer do. If I ever did. I’ve grown into myself more. I’m more comfortable in my own skin. It’s easier to be myself now that I’m not constantly having to hide who that is! Though I’m still struggling with depression, I’m happier now than I’ve ever been. Which says a lot. I’m more comfortable supporting what I believe in. In fact, I’ve become a regular little firebrand. I have a gay marriage bumper sticker on my car. I won’t take it into Redneckville because of that, but I don’t car what anyone thinks of me anymore. When something’s wrong I speak up more often now than I ever did.
But back to dreams. It helps to know that I was raised in bone-crushing poverty. My family was often homeless during my childhood. There were times I happily ate out of trash cans. Between that and our consumerist culture I know why I wanted what I did. To put it simply: I wanted it all. The big house on the hill with the four car garage, and too many cars to fit inside. I wanted the expensive wood floors throughout, the skylights in the bathroom, the granite countertops, and the marble flooring in the bathroom. I wanted a walk-in closet the size of a bedroom (ok, I still want this, lol) and a Mercedes in the driveway. I wanted designer clothing and a high-powered career. Expensive vacations in Europe and a ski lodge in the mountains. Jewelry worth more than most people’s cars. Partly I wanted these things to prove to myself and others that I am worth something, and partly to make up for my childhood.
With the exception of that closet (I am a woman after all) I no longer want any of that. Part of it is that I don’t need it: nothing material will ever prove that I’m worth something, even if I became as rich as Bill Gates. Part of it is that I don’t need it and just don’t want it. Another part is my environmentalism, and another is that I simply don’t want to be a materialist. I’ve seen what it does to people now. I’ll never forget when this finally sank in. When I woke up one day. Intellectually I had known it all along, but it never penetrated until this one moment. It was one of those aha! Epiphanies that people sometimes have.
I was at work about a year ago now. I had my desk in a cube, but I worked in this itsy bitsy lab with about twenty other people. I usually had my headphones on to keep my claustrophobia from getting out of control. Well, I had just finished a meeting and this guy was telling me and the other lady how the closet in his new house was all ready too small. His wife’s stuff jammed it and he didn’t have any room. They had just finished this house a few months before. Thinking it was the size of my closet, I asked him how big it was. The answer: 40 x 24 feet. I was floored. My house isn’t 40 feet long, much less my closet! The other woman told him he’d better get busy planning his next house, because it wasn’t long before his growing daughter would need that much space.
While I was mulling this over, the conservation shifted along. Somehow it got to music, and this woman pulled out her brand spanking new mp3 player. It was state of the art, and held a gizallion songs or something. The other guy congratulated her; his only held half that many, and he would have to upgrade. She was ridiculously gleeful that she’d outdone him. Okay, but this was the same woman who the Thursday before this had been telling another woman (in private, they assumed I couldn’t hear because of the headphones, which is a bad assumption) about her money problems. They were barely making ends meet, and her husband was looking at taking on a second job. And yet, over the weekend, she had gone out and plunked down several hundred dollars on this mp3 player. She’d had to stop buying milk and eggs for her kids, and couldn’t pay the heating bill until a week after it was due, but she could afford this thing?
What the f*^#? I’m thinking by this time. So I get back to work, and I’m thinking this over. It gets even better. This was Monday morning; on Friday two of the other guys had been having a good-natured argument. They had been watching football for years together at the one’s house, because he had a big screen tv. Well, the other had just bought a plasma tv with an even bigger screen, and he was jiving his friend that when football season rolled around, they were going to have switch which house they watched it at. This upset the first guy to know end. Allright, so right after lunch that Monday when all this other stuff happened, he comes in and makes an announcement, in front of his friend, and everything: his brand-new, larger screen than the empire state building, plasma tv, had been delivered this morning. And everyone else started kidding him about one-upping his friend.
And this is normal behavior for engineers. Everyone has this one-upmanship going on. Who has the better clothes, the bigger and newer SUV, the biggest house in the best neighborhood. Who has the most amenities, who went on the best vacation, who has the most stuff, what you’re getting next. More more more more more more More More MORE!!!!!!!! All the time. It was then, when everyone was kidding this guy who had plunked down 7,000+ dollars on a tv (I had a good idea how much it cost because I’d been browsing Best Buy that weekend), when I had this epiphany. Why? Why all this stuff? Why this race to see who can acquire the most stuff? Who can consume the most and make the most? Our entire culture, and not just the world of engineers, is based on this mentality of He Who Spends the Most is the Winner. Well, that’s great, but when was the last time you saw a hearse with a luggage rack? Paupers and princes end up in the same place. It’s not necessary. And in the final analysis, when you look at the costs of all this, who’s going to be paying for it? Not the people gleefully rushing to buy an mp3 player with their grocery money. It’s going to all our children and grandchildren.
I realized two things in this moment simultaneously. One, I didn’t want to live like this. I really, really didn’t. And two, despite all my problems and my past, in a very real way I was better off as a person than these people. I didn’t and don’t need a big screen tv to boost my self-esteem and make me feel good about myself. Even with my dysthymia, most days I feel better about myself than that! At most, I’ll go out and buy some chocolate. Or go for a ride on my bike.
Where am I now, I guess? I want a simpler life than that. I don’t mean an easy, comfortable everything done for you life. Just one that’s not focused around materialism as the end all be all of everything. I want a good career, one I can feel proud of myself for. One I can help people in. And I want my little mini farm, with my green house, my garden, my chicken run, and my dairy cow. And I want things I didn’t let myself want until a couple of years ago: a partner and kids. I don’t think I’ll ever have them still, but I do want them.
I’m working to simplify my life and give it more meaning. Giving up my cable was the best thing I’ve ever done. In the past three weeks, I’ve watched two dvds and that’s all the tv I’ve seen. I haven’t vegged out in front of it like I used to do. I’ve had more quiet time, more time to think, and less distractions. I’ve been working on other things. Myself first and foremost.
Peace out.
