I'm so paid

When I was a kid I remember trying to sort out all of the why's. I wanted to know why I had to wake up at six o'clock every day, make a lunch, and carpool to school. I wanted to know why it mattered that I went to school. "You go to school," adults told me, "so you can go to middle school and then high school and then, if you have good grades, you can go to college." College? Oh, there's a reason for that too. College, of course, is for gaining an education that will allow you to get into graduate school. And graduate school is supposed to help you get a "good" job. Why do I need a job? Oh, so you can earn enough money to buy the big house in the cul-de-sac and have a dog and a spouse and three kids and a minivan. So that those kids can go to school and get jobs and get dogs and minivans. It all just seemed so circular to me then. And, sometimes, it does now too.

I'm not trying to say that we're all wasting our time here, and that educating ourselves in order to secure decent jobs in order to live comfortably is totally ridiculous. But it begins to sound a little stale. If I drop out of college today and move into my parents' garage, society will most likely label me a failure. But if I finish my degree and land a really great job that pays so well that I am able to buy every new piece of Apple technology as it becomes available and vacation in Barbados every couple years, I will be successful. I will be successful because I have the ability to buy things I want. But what if I do move into my parents' garage and don't have a job to support my spending habit? No big deal. Just get a credit card. Or two. With credit, I can maintain all appearances of success when I'm around my friends: I can drive a cute new car and buy $5 lattes at Starbucks every day. This culture of consumerism has become so much a part of the American Dream that we seem to value stuff more than people. The other extreme would be if I did get that incredible job, but I worked so much in order to advance my position in the company that I never had time for people. In that case, I would appear successful, driving around in that cute car that I can afford, but at what cost? Would I be happy? Does happiness matter?