I recently had a close friend talk to me about their father’s fear of retiring. He’s in his mid-to-late 50s, makes decent money, and quite literally has it all: two homes, two new cars, a big boat, jet skis—the works. Basically, one giant bill every month.
What does it even mean to have all this stuff anyway? Is that the goal at the end of the day? If I think about making more and more money solely for the purpose of having exactly what he has… I don’t know. Is this really what we’ve been sold as the dream?
This isn’t news to anyone. It’s like lesson one, chapter one in the life lessons textbook: “Money doesn’t buy happiness.” But lately, I keep thinking that the life America invented has increasingly diminished our ability to even choose a different path or goal.
It is a very interesting conversation to have with your average career veteran when your intended end goal doesn’t really include increasing your income all that much or paving the way toward your dream car sitting in the driveway.
What if I just wanted to have two kids and amount to nothing more than a good friend to my family and loved ones and, like… I don’t know, maintain my teeth for 100 years?
“By 100, I want to still be able to chew my food, get in and out of my car without assistance, and visit my kids a bunch.”
That’s legitimately it.
I don’t know if too many people could genuinely comprehend that as an end goal. For the entirety of human history, just making it to 50 and keeping a roof over your head was the greatest life most humans could hope for—and there were untold numbers of meaningful lives that came from exactly that.
Every day, we’re sold on the idea that we need more, bigger, and better. I saw a commercial the other day from the ’80s for the Chevy S10—a truck about the size of my Ford Focus sedan—being touted as a workhorse for just about anything you’d need. You didn’t need a tank to tow your boat, camper, trailer, or four side-by-sides—bullshit, bullshit. People got along for the entirety of human history with tents and cots for camping, little fishing boats, and their own two feet.
Another big seller is that you must travel—that if you aren’t “seeing the world,” you somehow aren’t fulfilling your life.
William Shakespeare, quite literally by all available evidence, never left England. Immanuel Kant, one of the most famous philosophers of all time, never left Prussia.
We have the capability to travel anywhere and the convenience to do so, but this idea that traveling is a necessity for growth, learning, and significance is entirely new.
I certainly can’t deny the joy that can come from the modern marvels we have access to, but I legitimately have people—coworkers and friends—trying to convince me that I need a truck so I can pull my boat or camper. Or that I need to focus all of my power into traveling every second of my life. How did the modern machine brainwash everyone into becoming its salesperson?
I’m certainly not above taking advantage of all of these things and don’t plan to become the little house on the prairie with 2 goats, a chicken coop and a litter of kids. I just feel the fear of being sucked into this weird illusion that it’s some form of alternative life style to not care all that much about the modern American dream.
The other day, I stood on the porch of my 120-year-old home, watched my wife work in our teeny backyard, and felt like the richest man on earth.
I’m tired of trying to be convinced otherwise.
Wyatts Hobby Photos 