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The Hard Truth About Why We’re Never Satisfied

tand up and put one foot in front of the other by selling crafts on Pinterest for a little extra income. After all,
touching your Achilles tendon to the front of your you have to pay for the apartment you share with someone
toes. Now, stretch your arms out and look straight you found through Craigslist, but it’s not the greatest
S ahead. Next, look to your left, then to your right, because school is so expensive and you never have time to
and finally look up and down. How was your balance? Did enjoy time at home anyway.
you shake a little or totter a bit? Now imagine trying to do
this little exercise in an airplane aisle cruising at an altitude While it can be a crushing weight to try and do so much,
of 36,000 feet. You might get away with it for a bit, but the alternative is to be a nameless nobody. Nobody wants
eventually one of two things happen to knock you off to be a nobody, so we try all we can to be all we can. The
course. First, the plane may hit some turbulence and you problem with this, though, is that the drive to “do
find yourself getting thrown forward despite how good something with your life” is insatiable. It never ends. You’re
your initial equilibrium was. And even if it’s smooth sailing, never “there.” Take a moment to examine your life right
inevitably someone else will need to get by you so you end now. How much of what you’re doing is fueled by the
up getting politely tapped on the shoulder to move, or less desire to have something you don’t yet have? Even when
politely, moved aside if you don’t exit the aisle fast enough.
This is a bit how life works. As a college student, you have a
lot of responsibilities, and while you may have the good
fortune of sustaining the load for a while on your own,
eventually something or someone ends up shoving you off
course anyway.

Being busy is something the American culture esteems
highly. We are trained and encouraged from a young age to
“do it all.” The more you do, see, taste, feel, experience,
express, perform, give, take, etc., the more valuable you
are. It is very tempting to cram a lot of things into our
schedules because the rewards can be great: fame and
success, experiences and possessions, travel and we get the job, girl and house, we’re not satisfied until we
relationships. It’s funny that what would have been have the higher paycheck and published book. This societal
unheard of 100 years ago is now the bare minimum, pattern is broken because the very things we’re chasing
unspoken requirement of today. If your daddy was a shoe after will never satisfy us. Once we get what we want, we
cobbler, you grew up to be a cobbler. In 2016, if you want are left wanting more. Eventually, we will be rendered
to be a marine biologist, you can move from the Midwest powerless to keep up the balancing act either by our own
to the west coast to study the ocean. You’ll pay off the doing or by something outside of our control.
loans later, singing at local jazz clubs for a weekend job and