The 4 Major Life Traps & How To Avoid Them
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”
This quote is often attributed to Albert Einstein, but there are sources claiming he never said it. Either way, the quote holds true regardless who said it.
My astute observation has led me to believe that there are 4 major “life traps” that are the source of unhappiness for majority of people even though we’re socially engineered to believe these 4 life traps will lead to a happy, successful, fulfilling life. You’re about to get some real fortune cookie wisdom on how to avoid them.
- Going to College
Never has it been more obvious that going to college is not a guarantee for success and possibly one of the biggest wastes of time and money (and mental energy). We’re talking about 4 years or more of wasted time and tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt.
You’ll probably become another statistic as you contribute to the $1.5-$1.6 trillion U.S. student debt crisis and end up working as an underemployed barista at a Starbucks. Unfortunately, this isn’t uncommon. Worse yet, you could become an unemployed college graduate who has to resort to moving back in with your parents or other relatives.
So now you’re either an underemployed or an unemployed college graduate with a college degree not worth its weight and buried in a mountain of debt. You’ll essentially be a modern-day indentured servant. There’s no way in hell you’ll be able to pay down a mortgage or raise a family (or even just take care of yourself) while paying off your student loans.
You might even try to file for bankruptcy to clear your student loan debt which is an extremely arduous process. Declaring bankruptcy though will fuck up your credit for years. Forget about owning your dream home.
So ask yourself “Do I really need to go to college? Is it because my family, friends, peers, and society telling me I should?”
You can Google search right now plenty of successful people who never went to college or even dropped out of college for greater pursuits. Heck, some successful people never even graduated high school. I don’t advocate dropping out of high school.
You just shouldn’t go to college if you have no idea what you what you want to do with your life. Lacking direction doesn’t mean you should thrust yourself onto a path that everyone is telling you to do just because it’s the conventional norm. There are plenty of alternatives than going to college.
Fortune Cookie Wisdom:
Figure out a way (legally) to make and save as much money as possible while doing some serious soul searching.
It’s not like college has a maximum age limit anyways if you decide to attend later on. All I’m saying is that college is not the sure way to success. Nor should it be touted as such. It’s fine to take time off from “higher education” to find yourself. It’s your life, and you only have one life to live, so live it on your own terms.
2. Getting a Job
Many of us have worked a job we hate at some point in our lives, the kind of job that makes us wish for the day to end so we can clock out and leave.
People will say that working a job you hate is better than having no job and being homeless. There’s no argument that working a job you hate is far better than sleeping on a sidewalk. The issue is living your life in misery working for someone else making them rich and not reaching your full potential. You could very well be doing something that you’re talented at or have a knack for.
You get complacent with the job you hate citing that at least it has good benefits, hours, pay, etc. You think you have “job security”. What you fail to realize is that your job will fire you at the drop of a hat for any reason. It doesn’t matter how many years of blood, sweat, and tears you put in; you’re going curbside and possibly down skid row.
When someone tells you that you need job security, what they’re really saying is that you need a job that’s highly valued. Technology though is increasingly taking away many jobs now and will only continue to.
Fortune Cookie Wisdom:
Job security is something you have to create for yourself. Work your side hustle(s) so that way you can quit your job and pursue whatever it is you’re really passionate about.
Hell, even if you love your job and your employer, what if where you work goes out of business? ALWAYS be working on your side hustle(s). It should be your exit strategy to getting out of the rat race.
3. Getting Married
Most of my friends and people I’ve met are married now. Some of them seem happy; some of them seem not so happy. Regardless, marriage doesn’t magically make your relationship any different than before except now your bound by a contract. That’s it.
You might disagree and say that marriage is a covenant. If this were the case, then why would infidelity be one of the top reasons for divorce?
It’s not like a wizard or fairy godmother at your wedding waves a magic wand over both your heads, and magically you both can’t have sex with anyone else but each other. So whether you get married or not, the results are invariably the same. Either one of you could become unfaithful later on (if you’re not already).
How many times have you heard someone complain their spouse isn’t the person they thought they knew? It’s bewildering to me how so many couples still go through this. Just think how different you were 10 years ago or even a year ago. You’re a different person with each day, so what makes you think (or not think) this would be any different with your partner?
There are other reasons of course as to why couples go their separate ways, but the point being made is why sign a government contract on your love life to begin with?
You might still argue that marriage isn’t a contract. Ask an attorney, and they’ll tell you it’s a contract. Not only is marriage a contract, it’s a contract in which the state gets involved. The divorce lawyers are salivating at the day you gotta go to them to file for a divorce. They’ll be waiting as they circle around you like vultures in the sky and sharks in the water.
The odds aren’t in your favor either as roughly 40%-50% of marriages end in divorce here in the U.S. And let’s not forget the couples that stay miserably married due to cultural, religious, financial, and other personal reasons.
You might further disagree and say that marriage makes you more committed to each other. Well yeah, I would be too if my money (and possibly my livelihood) was at stake. You might say that a number of positive changes happen in your relationship once you get hitched. Okay, here’s a question then.
Wouldn’t this have happened anyways in your relationship with the passage of time even if you both didn’t get married?
Maybe yes. Maybe no. Maybe you both would have broke up a month later. You could just as well end your marriage in a month too. The future is always uncertain. The point is that you both would grow and mature together anyways if you both stayed together.
Marriage oddly seems to create a sort of placebo effect in which couples think they’re relationship is somehow more “official” because of the magical, enchanting, and romantic feelings we associate with marriage such as the picturesque wedding ceremony.
Now you can call each other husband or wife, and you have an extremely useless and expensive diamond ring to show all your family, friends, and strangers that probably cost some poor kid in Sierra Leone their own ring finger.
Why not at least use that money instead towards something useful like a second-hand car for your partner or put a dent in their student loan(s)? Let’s not forget your marriage isn’t even really considered “official” (legally speaking anyways) until you and your partner go to the state courthouse to sign the marriage license. How romantic, right?
So isn’t the institution of marriage enforced by the government posing as the next chapter in a deeply committed relationship?
Therefore, doesn’t it take more trust and loyalty to be in a life-long relationship not bound by a contract but by knowing each other well enough that you both would stick with each other through thick and thin?
Wouldn’t this make the legal institution of marriage the antithesis of what true love is?
Just ruminate on this for a moment.
Your best argument could be that married couples receive amazing benefits that single people don’t, and you’re right. But you know what nullifies all these benefits? Divorce. The fact that such a legal process even exists should make you wonder why.
After all, isn’t marriage suppose to last forever?
It’s as if the government knows that your marriage is destined to fail. I can see the vultures and sharks (divorce lawyers) going in for the kill now.
Look at it this way.
The casino is the government. The game you’re playing at the casino is your marriage. The flashing lights and vibrant sounds are the chemicals in your brain making you feel like you’re deeply in love with your partner even though you’ve only known them for a year, and the casino comps are all the benefits you get from being married.
Just remember. The house always wins.
Fortune Cookie Wisdom:
Either don’t get legally married or be damn sure to write out and sign a prenuptial agreement (which still costs money).
I’m not saying no one should get married. I’m saying that marriage is a gamble, but we do it because we believe that marriage is the sure way for everyone to live “happily ever after” and that the government should be involved in our love lives.
4. Having Kids
The biggest responsibility of our lives will most likely be raising our own kid(s) some day. I’m sure you know people who had kids when they were kids themselves or later had them because they feared on missing out and a number of other bad reasons. This is something all too common, and many people honestly regret having kids.
Maybe you like kids but don’t want to have them, or maybe you don’t want to have kids because you don’t like them. I’m sure you’ve heard from some people that you’re selfish for not wanting to have kids, but you’re actually not, and I commend you for it.
Our hedonistic sexual urges though override our rational, logical thinking and senses much of the time. This is why our wasted $2 billion of funding towards sexual abstinence education is useless and absolutely unrealistic. Plus, many people are irresponsible and dislike using contraceptives which is probably the reason why almost 50% of births in the U.S. are “unplanned”.
You sure don’t want to experience baby mama/daddy drama along with the feeling of resentment towards your kid(s) because of your past tryst(s). This can ruin your chances of ever finding the right partner to be in a stable, long-term relationship with later down the road.
Maybe you’re on the other end of the spectrum and want to have kids, but you want to put them on hold because you want to experience life while young and childfree. Therefore, you’ve taken the responsible action using contraceptives and luckily still haven’t gotten anyone pregnant or gotten pregnant yourself.
Maybe you’re working on your own stability first so that way you’ll be able to provide for your future kid(s). This usually requires years of diligence towards your education and professional career which means you’ll probably be old by the time you want to have kids which raises the likelihood of them having health issues.
Life just doesn’t seem fair, right? Either you have kids while you’re too young and irresponsible, or you wait to have kids when you’re too old and risk them having health complications.
So what’s the answer to solve these dilemmas? Here’s the breakdown.
So basically you have 5 different kinds of “kids people”.
- People who like/love kids and want to have them
- People who like/love kids but don’t want to have them
- People who dislike/hate kids and don’t want to have them
- People who dislike/hate kids but still want to have them
- People who are indifferent or unsure about kids
Modern-day technology is the winning solution for all these people which includes you.
How, you ask? Quite simple (in a way).
For men:
Get your sperm frozen first. Don’t worry. Sperm can be frozen for 20–50 years or longer (technically indefinitely), and the cost to collect, test, freeze, and storage fees is relatively affordable. Then get a vasectomy (“v-snip”) which is quite safe, almost 100% effective, fast, and affordable as well. Better yet, your health insurance might cover most of the costs if not all of it.
For women (if you can afford to):
Get your eggs frozen first. There are a number of major issues though as getting your eggs frozen is quite expensive and a strenuous procedure along with getting a tubal ligation afterwards. Better to probably just freeze your eggs and stay using contraceptives as many of them are over 99% effective anyways.
These options may seem expensive to you, but none of them even come close to the cost of raising a child from birth to the age of 18 (over $200,000 at least). Then let’s not forget the undue stress a kid may bring upon raising them and all the sleepless nights of worrying about them.
Fortune Cookie Wisdom (lengthier):
If you’re a man who’s unsure about having kids or you want to have kids but have to put them on hold because you want to live life first, get your swimmers frozen and then get a v-snip.
If you’re a man who dislikes or even hates kids, just do yourself and the world a favor and get a v-snip you numb nut. And no, don’t think you’ll change your mind about liking them because if something has to change you to make you like kids, you’re fucked up anyways.
If you’re a woman who’s unsure about having kids or you want to have kids but have to put them on hold because you want to live life first, get your eggs frozen if you can afford it and be damn religious about using contraceptives or get your tubes tied.
If you’re a woman who dislikes or even hates kids, just do yourself and the world a favor and get your tubes tied. And no, don’t think you’ll change your mind about liking them because if something has to change you to make you like kids, you’re fucked up anyways.
Honestly, virtually all the reasons people want to have kids are selfish while at least some of the reasons to not have kids are not. Deciding not to have kids means that you save the planet from having another person leave a carbon footprint. So by having kids, you’re either ruining the planet or possibly ruining your life or your kid’s life. Hell, maybe you’re already doing all three.
You might love kids and want to have them as well as I do, but it’s something all of us should think much more deeply about. After all, it means you’re responsible for another person’s life and inextricably tied to them forever, good or bad. That should make you scared out of your wits along with knowing that you’re essentially contributing to destroying the planet.
Sounds harsh, but it’s reality. So act and choose wisely before you decide on bringing a child into this world as it could become the biggest regret of your life.
So there you have it, the 4 major life traps.
Many of us have been brainwashed since we were children to commit to these life traps without truly pondering why we do them. Go to college, get a job, get married, and have kids is considered the standard blueprint life formula in our society.
Hell, maybe you’re actually happy living by this blueprint (I highly doubt it), but it’s not something that works for the majority, and that’s the problem. So before you commit to any of these 4 major life traps, please take the time to think and look back at this article.
