“It was true that I didn’t have much ambition, but there ought to be a place for people without ambition, I mean a better place than the one usually reserved. How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?”
~ Charles Bukowski

Old Chuck was on to something. Does anybody really enjoy chasing the American Dream? I know I don’t. Sure, I have a full-time job, so maybe this sounds hypocritical, but I can’t help wondering if it’s all an elaborate farce. I take no real pleasure in my work, but I do it to provide the basic necessities my family needs to live comfortably.

That being said—what’s the point? How is it a good system to spend your life working just to afford a house that takes a month to build but thirty years to pay off? Why do we go into debt for a car that loses half its value the second we drive it off the lot? Why do we feel the need to conform to ridiculous social standards: cut your hair, shave your face, dress in a monkey suit? Why do we all get trapped in this vicious cycle?

We grow up, go to college, get a job, fall in love, have children, accrue debt, pay taxes, and raise those children. We grow old, maybe fall out of love, and keep grinding away—working, buying disposable stuff to fill the void, and paying off debt. Then we get too old to work, get sick, and end up in a nursing home that smells like piss and disinfectant. If we’re lucky, our grown children visit us on Christmas and birthdays, unless they’re too busy with their own struggles. Eventually, we fade away, hoping that maybe there’s something more on the other side, just so we can have a second chance…

That’s basically how I see the American Dream—a cycle of risk, reward, and conformity that we’re conditioned to believe will make us happy.

But does it? Does this rat race really make you happy? Or does it just sustain you well enough to pretend that it does?

I tend to lean toward the latter.

I know I’m part of this system too. I chase the American Dream like everyone else. But I’m trying to change. And a big first step that’s helped my overall mental state is simply not doing things I don’t enjoy—unless they’re an absolute necessity.

Simple, right? Maybe it is. Think about the things you do every week and ask yourself, “Does this activity bring joy into my life or produce a result necessary to survive comfortably?”

If the answer is no… stop doing it.

Don’t like going to church on Sunday but feel like you should because of societal conditioning? Then stop going.

Don’t enjoy spending time with a particular person who has been draining your energy for years? Stop spending time with them.

Don’t like watching the doom and gloom that passes for network news but feel an obligation to stay informed? Turn off your TV… There are other ways to get information.

The list goes on. And it’s different for each of us. Identify the things in your life that aren’t making you happy and get rid of them.

Conversely, it’s just as important to find activities and people that do make you happy and prioritize them.

Maybe you love going to the movies, but you rarely do because you’re too busy putting in extra hours at the office just to climb a few more rungs on the corporate ladder. Screw that. The ladder isn’t real anyway. Go to the movies. Work will still be there tomorrow.

When was the last time you took your kids to the park or a baseball game? When was the last time you went to a stand-up comedy show or a live music performance? When was the last time you read a good book?

Do these things on a regular basis. Do what makes you happy. And skip the things that don’t.

This is where your job can actually become useful and have a positive impact on your life and sanity. You have to work, I get it, so why not spend your earnings on things that bring joy into your life? Sure, you have to take care of the basics, but maybe it’s time to redefine what that means. Food, water, shelter. That doesn’t have to mean a five-bedroom house with a couple of luxury cars in the garage and a closet full of expensive suits. If we spend more of our hard-earned money on experiences and less on chasing the American Dream, we might find that we actually enjoy our lives more. It’s time to reintroduce ourselves to novelty. Do something new. Explore, read, seek, enjoy. Kill your American Dream and build a new one.

In the end, the result may still be the same. We all die, certainly. And many of us may still end up in a nursing home that smells of disinfectant and regret—provided we’re lucky enough to live that long.

But ask yourself a serious question and answer honestly. When you’re lying in that bed with death closing in, looking back on a life that seemed to fly by so quickly, would you rather reflect on how much of your precious time you spent amassing wealth and status that you never really got to enjoy because you were always too busy? Or would you rather look back on a lifetime of new experiences, enjoyable activities, and meaningful interactions with friends and family?

Again, I lean toward the latter.

But what do I know? Why should anyone listen to me? Honestly, they shouldn’t. I don’t have all the answers. I’m just trying to change my own course. I can’t help you. You might have it all figured out. The corporate-ladder-rat-race-big-house-2.5-kids-American-Dream might truly make you happy. If so, good for you. Keep at it.

But if it doesn’t, maybe it’s time we take a good, long, honest look at ourselves, identify the experiences and people that are making us unhappy, and make a change.

We may not succeed, but if we don’t at least try, things will never get better.

I guess in the end, most of what we do doesn’t really matter. We like to think we’re unique and important, not just one of seven billion people on a rocky planet hurtling through an infinite universe we barely understand. We live and we die. Some of us are remembered for a while; most of us are forgotten almost instantly—we’re all forgotten eventually. But that doesn’t change the fact that we exist for a little while and should try to be happy in that brief time. You owe it to yourself and those around you. And even if everything I’ve just written is nothing more than the pointless rambling (which it likely is) of an unimportant, uneducated armchair philosopher too scared to take his own advice, I feel that I’ve at least figured out a few truths: Try to be happy. Try to be kind. Try to help those who need help.

That’s it, really.

And you don’t need me, religion, or politicians to tell you these things, because you already know them. The next step—the difficult, terrifying, monumental step—is acting on this knowledge that we already possess.

We started this piece off with a Bukowski quote, so it seems fitting to let the old drunk close it out as well: “We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.”

Good luck. I think we’ll need it.

Author:Nick Allison is just a banged-up Army Infantry vet. He lives in Austin, TX with his wife, their kids, and two big, dumb, ugly mongrel dogs. Don’t take anything he says too seriously—he’s just trying to figure out this ride we call existence like everyone else. Also, he enjoys writing his own bio in third person because, let’s face it, it probably makes him feel more important.

Please feel free to send your love letters and hate mail to nick.chaossection@gmail.com.

“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.

– Alan Watts