Why Our Country Sucks

March 25, 2011 at 3:12 AM | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

It’s rant time again. This rant has an overall theme, but I jump around a lot. Fair warning.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what the phrase “real world” means. I’ve been missing the hell out of college life and trying to put my finger on exactly what it was. I mean, looking back, my college life wasn’t actually that great. I spent most of it around really arrogant, smart rich people without any sense of character whatsoever, and I spent Fridays doing homework or at the gym most of the time. So what was so great? Why do so many people, like me, spend the rest of their lives wishing they could go back to college? Is it regret? Is it not wanting to work? I couldn’t really decide until recently.

I think my answer to that question is this: college shields you from the real world. Before I define what the real world is, let me explain what it is not. The “real world,” as we know it, is not college life. It is not spending most of the day in a classroom or walking around a beautiful campus. It is not spending the afternoon in the shade of a large tree with friends. It is not eating dinner every night with your roommates or suitemates, talking about your respective philosophies and speculations on life and growing as a person. It is not staying up until all hours of the night playing video games or drinking. It is not hooking up with every girl or guy that tickles your fancy (double entendre?). It is not random roadtrips on the weekend, or pleasurable trips to the beach or the river with good friends in the summer. It is not a place where you can typically say anything you want or are free to think of anything. And certainly you are not encouraged to do so. I’ve seen wonderful, beautiful things happen at college that can happen nowhere else. I’ve seen a normal person put his or her brain to use and come up with extraordinary solutions to problems. I’ve seen fantastic engineers and scientists solving the problems of tomorrow for what is basically free.

But none of that is the real world. In the real world, you’re either a doctor, a lawyer or an engineer, or you’re nobody. You’re either making money or you’re out on the streets. In the real world, your old friends are off married and busying themselves with children and paying off endless bills, or they’re out of touch, or they’re enemies. In the real world, you can’t say what you want to say because it could mean your job. You can’t publicly support change for fear of being ridiculed by the so-called realists. You can’t dare to dream because the real world will dash your dreams against the sharp, unyielding rocks of living in an economically driven world. So forget your bygone leisure days of college where you were free to socialize, philosophize and grow as a person. Forget the days of being able to naively trust someone the second you met them, or the freedom that comes with an unburdened heart. You’re in the real world now.

So, you graduate college and join the ranks of millions before you who, just like you, will work for the rest of their lives paying off bills and muttering about the management and the government. You give up your friends, your life and maybe even your values just to walk home with the almighty paycheck in hand. You forget all the things you learned in college because the real world is about a millennium behind academia (you know, because it’s the real world). No more leisure time, no more time camping with friends, no more nights turning into mornings with substantial conversation. Your mind closes off to possibility. Change becomes the enemy. You become trampled and crushed by the weight of the real world. You cling to whatever tiny sliver of happiness and positivity is left in your life, whether it be your kids, your wife or your family. You might keep a few close friends, but your ability to open up to new people and trust new faces is gone. You’ve become inelastic. As you get older, you spend so much time and effort resisting change due to this inelasticity that it’s all you have in you. At the end of the day, it’s all you can do to accomplish your obligatory daily tasks to “hold down the fort.” It’s no wonder college was such a paradise.

Am I complaining about the way things are? Am I yet another person up in arms that the government does not do enough? Or does too much? Do I think we are being overtaxed? Should we tax the rich and use it to provide services?

No. I’m none of those things. I’m a dreamer. I’m a person with a heart and soul. I chose not to accept the “real world” as my reality. I’m someone who believes that reality is what you make of it. I’m someone who believes that anyone can do anything they want to do. I don’t believe in being crippled, whether it be physically, emotionally, mentally, financially or otherwise. I believe that what you tolerate is what you accept. And I believe that if you do nothing, you have still made a choice. I believe that change is good. I believe that practicality does not apply to personal philosophy. I believe realism is a sad, pathetic way of admitting that you live controlled by fear instead of something better. That is my mantra. That is my reality. I control my life – not god, not the government, not people who hurt me in my past, no one but me. And I’m leaving this bullshit you’ve built for yourselves called the “real world” for something way better – freedom and independence.

What about taxes, Frank? What about bills? What about your credit score? Gotta have money to eat. Gotta eat. What about a car? Kids? A home?

I will pay my bills. I will pay my taxes. I don’t give a shit about my credit score – I won’t need one. I will eat just fine. I will have a nice, reliable vehicle. I will have kids, and I will have a home. Someday.

In fact, forget all that. Not only will I pay my bills and my taxes, but I’ll buy organic food. I’ll support the farmers I believe are doing the right thing. I’ll buy and drive a hybrid, because I believe in it. I’ll teach my kids how to fend for themselves, I’ll give them a good education and I’ll provide them with a wonderful home. And independence. I’ll even give money to causes I believe in. What’s more, I’ll do it without working for my entire life. Or even most of it.

That’s a tall order, you say. Is it?

No one surpasses the American citizen when it comes to distaste for communism. Communism. What a great idea, in theory. In fact, its implementation wasn’t even half bad in China. But it all came crashing down. In America, everyone’s all about capitalism. Everyone believes in free will, independence and the power and personal choice to be whoever you want. At least, that’s what everybody thinks they believe in.

I see these same people screaming out that we should be taxing the rich. Tax the rich – they don’t need it! They’ve got all the money they could ever need. We’re poor people – WE need it. Everyone demands health care and demands that it be less expensive. Everyone believes in a right to cheap goods and services. After all, if everything is cheap, we can have more of everything, and everybody can prosper. Everyone can have a good life and nobody has to suffer. Robin Hood taxes are the mantra of mainstream society, and the solution to all our problems.

If that were true, why is everyone suffering? Robin Hood tax schemes are the very essence of socialism and communism. Ironic, then, that every layman and laywoman in the country is screaming out against communism, don’t you think? Here are some incredible facts: the top 10% of wealthy people pay roughly 90% of the taxes in our country. Income tax was first voted in by the poor and middle class to tax the rich. The idea was that the rich would pay higher taxes and those taxes could be used for schools, infrastructure and other public needs. But it backfired. The government got a taste of money and started blowing up like a balloon. But rich people didn’t think it was fair for their hard-earned money to be taxed so unfairly, and they found ways to protect their wealth. The government came after the poor and middle class next. And now, over two centuries later, the middle class is almost completely wiped out and you’re either rich or you’re poor. That’s the REAL history of income taxes.

If Robin Hood taxes aren’t the answer, what is? If the government and the rich people aren’t to blame for your misfortune, who is? Well, I have an answer to that: you are. That’s right, I’m putting responsibility on you. On your fear and your ignorance, actually. Fear and ignorance are to blame for where our country is today. Ignorance because everyone is so short-sighted and uninformed. Fear because no one wants to take a risk – a risk that might be necessary to get to a better life. I mean, think about it. If people had nothing to fear, why would they be so averse to change? We all know people whose lives could be vastly improved if they weren’t afraid to take a risk.

What if you didn’t have anything to fear? What if tomorrow if you lost your job, you could continue to comfortably pay your bills and support your family indefinitely? What if instead of becoming a lawyer, doctor or engineer, you could be what you wanted to be? What if you could stand up for your values every day and drive a hybrid car, or buy that more expensive food JUST to show your support for ecologically sensible farming?

Well, you can. But Robin Hood taxes aren’t going to do it. And neither is your realist attitude. I know some rich people. And I know how to get rich – and I am doing it this very second that I write this. You may laugh at me now, but you won’t laugh in 5 years when i quit working because I don’t have to, after starting my career this year.

So what gives? What makes me so confident? What makes rich people rich and poor people poor? I must have had some kind of advantage over you. That’s bullshit and you know it. That’s your fear taking you over. Every time you say something is impossible because of money, time or some other common excuse, you’re putting on your fear mask and disguising it under a heaping pile of steaming, unadulterated shit. Because the biggest difference between rich people and poor people is this: attitude. The only people who have money and are complete jackasses and idiots are the ones that inherit it. I challenge you to prove me wrong. Sure, rich people can be jerks just like the rest of us, but I guarantee you everybody who has made it out of the “real world” has some kind of courage and strength you simply can’t stop. And, baby, you can’t stop me.

So I guess the point of this rant is this: stop complaining and start doing or shut the FUCK up. I’m sick and tired of listening to everyone tell me how Obama is destroying the world. I’m tired of listening to how you can’t do the things you want to do because it isn’t economical. I’m tired of hearing how you sacrificed values in the name of staying alive. Or, rather, seeing it. I’m tired of you all telling me what I can and can’t do. I’m tired of your realist bullshit. I’m tired of watching you all fail at taking a single step towards your own betterment. You may opt for a life of 9 to 5 work, dashed dreams, an irreparably damaged past or whatever the fuck emo bullshit you wanna call it, but I choose something different – something better. You can keep muttering and yamming away at whoever will listen about the government and how people have no values or character, but I’m going to do something about it.

You all sicken me when you call yourselves believers and funnel every bit of your strength into hoping for an afterlife – a second chance where everybody gets everything they want and nobody has to do anything ever. I find that belief so offensive and pathetic I’m not sure there are even words to describe the feeling. This is your life RIGHT here, RIGHT now. Every second that goes by that you waste speaks volumes more about your character than anything else ever could. What if there is no second chance? What if there is no afterlife? What if it doesn’t matter what we do here? What if it’s ALL OVER when you die? What’s the point of living some celibate, abstinent life where you forego pleasures, hopes and dreams all in the name of getting them in another life and just surviving this one? You want to be a believer? You want to make a difference? Believe in YOURSELF. Believe in now! The power of presence! Stop thinking about tomorrow or crying about yesterday and do something TODAY. That is where life happens – the present. Life doesn’t get any better unless you force it to. God’s not going to come fix everything up. The government is bankrupt. Take responsibility for yourself. Take responsibility for your actions and your thoughts. Be proactive.

High-Performance Lifestyle