Discontent and Disillusioned

This is not where I pictured me life going. This is not who I thought I would be.

Actually, let me back up. To start off, let’s address the elephant in the room.

I am fully aware of the bitter irony behind a middle aged straight white man (or is it straight middle aged white man? I’m not really sure on the hierarchy of privilege) writing a personal essay about discontentment and disillusionment.

I get it. Trust me, I do. I understand that I have nothing to bitch about and whatever ails me can be reduced and summarized into three words: first-world problems.

That being said, I still feel like I have something to say and yay for platforms like Medium for giving me a platform from which to say it.

Student Loans

I feel like this is as good a place as any to start. Debt is not limited to race or gender or sexual orientation. It doesn’t *discriminate and hurts us all. I am buried under my student loans with no signs of ever digging out. I don’t know how people do it. How do I borrow 70k for my undergrad and graduate degrees, make 45k a year and ever hope to pay it back? Oh, that’s not to mention what I pay in child support because I was married when I started school and borrowed to help support us but then got divorced and now those loans are 100% my responsibility.

This is not what I went to school for. I am not using my degree…well mostly not. But remain straddled with student loan payments nonetheless. When I started school, I was idealistic. I wasn’t concerned about money. I was concerned about learning. I was concerned about the experience.

fuck. that. shit.

While I truly loved my time at school (even though let’s be honest-I was married with a kid-I didn’t have a real “college experience”) and feel like I learned a ton, I wish I would have had someone smack me, shake the shit out of me, and remind me that paying 70k for an “experience” is idiotic.

That isn’t to say if I could do it again I wouldn’t go back to college. I would for sure. But only if I had a plan to pay for it and sure as shit wouldn’t have gone to a private-14k-per-semester-private-school.

Workforce

I don’t count myself amongst the tribe of lowly millennials, and yet I feel I possess some of their entitlement.

Work sucks. It really sucks.

I don’t necessarily hate my job and I certainly don’t hate the people with whom I work, but I hate that I have lived a life that requires me to work. My 2nd wish would be for that same person who earlier did the shaking and slapping to teach me about the alternative-grow a beard, get weird, and disappear into the mountains (thanks Eminem). I know it is possible to live a life devoid of all the shit that we convince ourselves we need when we really don’t.

I know there is a way to live without credit cards and debt and 50 hour work weeks. I read about those people all the time. They live in a van or tinyhouse and have figured out how to live a very rewarding life with very little income. DILLY DILLY!

I guess my beef with work is the obligation. We have to work so hard and for so long only to hopefully retire at 70 with some semblance of a life on a severely limited income. We gamble EVERYTHING (our youth, our happiness, our families) on the CHANCE of having a decent retirement. What if it doesn’t happen? What if we lose our social security and pension and 401(k) and go to retire only to find out we literally have NOTHING?

Adventure

Like most men of my generation–and if I’m being honest, I think every generation of men since WWII–I long for adventure. I have this idea about masculinity, this ideal story of manhood that I tell myself I need to live up to, while never actually accomplishing anything.

I know my dad is very much the same way. We talk of going fishing and doing manly shit while sitting in comfy armchairs in his living room. His fly fishing rod is exactly where he left it last Christmas when I gave it to him. I just bought a machete and hatchet and big-ass survival knife because I watch TV shows like Alone and Bushcrafter Build Off and want to be prepared for my own date with the wild.

I’m not sure where as men we lost our way, but I know it fuels unhappiness and depression in many of my testosterone deprived brothers.

But here’s the kicker. I buy this shit. I watch these shows. I read and I yearn and prepare. But I don’t do anything about it. Why? Why am I so hesitant to actually go gallivanting through the mountains and put my mettle to the test? What is keeping me from living the life I dream about?

I don’t know. Fear maybe? Fear of the unknown? More likely, it is fear of being uncomfortable. My life is so easy. I have what I need at my fingertips. Why get all sweaty and dirty and bloody when I can just stay home and make another cocktail?

You know what? That sounds pretty good right now.