Thursday, June 17, 2010

Part 2 - But that's the way it's always been done!

The dehumidifier created a new world. Or, more accurately, it allowed me to see a new world. It broke the traditional world that I had always lived in and showed me a world of unlimited potential. And that’s the enemy isn’t it? Tradition.

See, here’s the problem. You start life out, and if you have decent at all parents, they’ll probably tell you that you can do anything and that the sky’s the limit, and so on. And that’s half true. The sky is the limit and the world presents a nearly unlimited potential to do things, given certain circumstances. Now, I understand that not everyone can do everything and that people are limited by various factors but I appreciate the enthusiasm and optimism. I just wish that people actually believed it and that it just wasn’t some clichéd bullshit that parents feel they need to feed their children. Because a lot of parents are dishonest about it. They usually have an ideal of what they want their kids to achieve and how they’ll measure the success of their children. For example, if your big goal in life is to work at a 7-11 or become a manager at McDonald’s, most parents won’t be super supportive of that. Hell, most of society won’t be super supportive of that. Because that’s not the proper goal is it? That is not the norm of what people want, so to want it draws scorn from those around you. I have experienced this, and I know lots of friends who have as well. You’re living your life, and you go visit the folks, and at some point they casually bring up something in your life that needs changing. “How’s that girlfriend of yours? Gonna get married soon?”, “How’s that job of yours? You know, you should go back to school and get a business degree.”,” How’s school going? When are you going to get out there and get real job?”

And it’s not just the parents. It’s a lot of people. Huge swaths of our society cling to these ancient traditions of what a life is meant to be and how it should be done. Beliefs are passed on from one generation to the next and they’re taken without any question. I’ll cover a few examples that have really impacted me in future posts. While I understand that these beliefs make life a bit easier and provide a template for living, I see that they can also make life so much duller and tedious, at least, if you don’t think about them. Traditions are a fine thing, and traditional views are cool, if you really think about them and decide that they are what you want. But to wander along without ever questioning what’s possible and the potential for what life could be is to doom yourself to a lesser existence that you can’t really say you chose. Or maybe you did and the lack of choice is a choice. But what do I know? All I can really say is that, at the end of the day, I feel it’s better to have done it my way and attempted to recognize and achieve my full potential, then to be a cog in a machine, punching my card and waiting to die. And I don’t want that last bit to be seen as some type of jab at time card/ blue collar jobs because it shouldn’t be. Those jobs are necessary and totally cool. Being a CEO of a multimillion dollar company when you hate it and would rather be swinging a hammer is a let down in my opinion. But that’s just me. And as always, what do I know?

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