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Location: In a place with little freedom (aka USA)
712 posts, read 1,369,467 times
Reputation: 261
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Fine, we all start life and have to go to school and learn so we can one day get a job, but does it have to be 8 hours a day? Does it have to be 12 grades and then college? Seems too much of our life is wasted sitting down somewhere for nothing. You take a high school graduate vs a dropout and they both end up working at the same McDonalds - no difference. You see my point?
We either go to college or not and get a job and we still end up working 40 hours a week and some of us that have kids and families etc hardly have anytime to be together. Why does it matter what you degree you get or what career you follow if you don't have time to enjoy life? Who cares if you like your job or not, the point is that you dont have a choice - you need the money. Why cant we work less hours in america, what is so bad about a 30 hour work week like they have in Europe?
The little time we have to be at home, we either go out to eat and pay outrageous prices, or watch a movie or two at a theater and waste $50 to $100+ and to top it off we have to watch stupid commercials.
Everywhere you go you are reminded that you can't be fat, you have to be physically fit, eat healthy and join a gym and of course watch out for terrorists.
At home you watch TV and get "entertained" by channels like CNN, Fox and MSNBC. You pay for 500 channels on either cable or satellite and most of them are crap, like home shopping or garbage. Then you have mindless reality TV shows that they spoon feed to us because apparently we americans are easy to entertain. Only good channels nowadays are like Discovery channel. But in reality we watch tons of commercials and have no choice in the matter - why cant we opt out like we can with "do not call" lists? Why cant we opt out for junk mail that we have to pay to throw away?
Why are these damn gas prices going up and down all the time? Why cant they charge 18-wheelers the most money for gas instead and just pass that cost down to the goods being sold?
Why is music like rap music ruined by going "bubble gum"? Why cant anything pure be kept that way instead of being commercialized to make the most money?
Credit cards are evil and you should never get one. Also if you can never finance a car, instead save up and buy it cash if you can. Thanks to Reagan we now need credit to survive but we don't have to own everything we see in those commercials we are paying to see. Anything that comes with fine print is bad. Bastards.
There is nothing wrong with gambling, playing lotto, smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol or even certain drugs like marijuana. As long as things are done with moderation - we as a society don't need to be told not to do these things or be taught they are bad. These are social things and they should not be frowned on or limited.
Yes we still have a few freedoms left in america. But most though are going away slowly, like smoking in public, going on a plane without getting nude first, text messaging at a red light or using a phone in a car while driving (like the cops do). Running a stop sign that really didn't belong there in the first place - just because some idiot put it there. Then you have red light cameras everywhere. In other words we dont have the benefit of the doubt anymore, no more discretion. It's: You are guilty by default. OK maybe the stop sign thing was stupid to mention, but you get the idea.
You are reading this and you either AGREE or probably think I am crazy. It's OK if you think I am crazy because maybe you are OK with the way things are in life. More power to you, but I am sure one day you will feel trapped or lost.
Think about all this, when you are a senior citizen, none of what you did in school or did for a living will matter except that you have people around you that love you. Of course and that you have some money put away to spend $100 at the movies with your grand kids. That's all you need in the end, love, just like John Lennon said.
Last edited by 2goldens; 04-19-2010 at 02:25 PM..
Reason: Moved from Other Topics
I think a lot of people today are spoiled... when I think about the lives my ancestors lived and the work they had to do, it reminds me my life is pretty good and I'm not going to ruin it by being a cynical moaner.
Some days I get like that too, and think about selling and/or dumping everything I own and retreating from the world.
But then I remember there is a lot of good stuff mixed in with the bad that comes from living in this day and age.... and that maybe, just maybe... it all comes out even in the end.
IMO, I think I've got life by the a**. Loving wife, loving son, good job, eat well, drink well, sleep well, no debt other than a mortgage, drive what I enjoy.....I could go on but there's other threads to visit.
I love my life.
I take the good and don't involve myself in things that I don't enjoy.
I travel almost every weekend, have friends, listen to music I enjoy, read books that I choose, enjoy my job.
I envy my life, and I'm living it.
So nope, I don't think any of those things make life bad. It is what it is.
Well, I'm NO Pollyanna; in fact, I'm a self-confessed pessimist. I do think life is difficult.
But I do think it's supposed to be difficult; otherwise, we learn nothing about lessons in Life.
On the other hand, I do think a lot of Americans work WAY too much, and there's a general guilt about being laid-back and bored for awhile. It's a mortal sin in the US.
And I agree that we're losing a lot of freedoms from too much government control.
As for music, I think both (c)rap and bubbles are equally bad, and to me pop music has gone down the crapper ever since. But they have their audience.
I think a lot of people today are spoiled... when I think about the lives my ancestors lived and the work they had to do, it reminds me my life is pretty good and I'm not going to ruin it by being a cynical moaner.
And we should never forget that we owe all of our comfort and convenience to the toil of the generations that preceded us. Our purpose should be to provide some advancements for succeeding generations.
Our current obsession with pursuing unsustainable growth is something we have to come to terms with, though.
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