Somehow these “socially-accepted norms” were developed that should potentially set you up for the future and on the right path. First, they send you to kindergarten, then pre-school, then high school, then college, the two-year institution first, followed by a four-year institution, and then you’ll have to find an internship followed by a job. Then life kicks you in the balls regularly until you retire, if you are lucky. That’s already so much fucking agenda through the formative years and into your early adult life. Damn, I feel fortunate to survive. I feel sorry for my kid, who hasn’t even gone to childcare yet. In his Working Class Hero song, John Lennon sang, “As soon as you’re born they make you feel small by giving you no time instead of it all … and then they expect you to pick a career …” John Lennon coming out of one of the most successful, famous, and influential bands in the world, in his post-Beatles life, was clearly not out of touch with reality when he wrote these lyrics. This song sounds like a pain, raw, honest, the real deal, the real shit. John Lennon felt it in his heart even though he was lucky not to deal with those social routines and principles. This song is as relevant today as it was fifty or so years ago because certain things never change.

I am at that age and presence of mind where I start to analyze what my life has been, and there it is going, and this analysis never fucking stops. I’m halfway through my best young adult years of life, and if I am lucky to live the whole second half of it, I’ll be right there on the edge of the retirement age, fingers crossed. If there ever will be such a thing as retirement when I grow old. Who the fuck knows? I like to look back at my life quite often and dwell on the past, comparing different phases I went through and the times when I struggled or succeeded. It is fascinating to see how things have changed over the years. I am not the man I had been two years ago, and sure, not the same person I was five or even ten years ago. If he were still alive today, I’m guessing John Lennon wouldn’t be the same person he was fifty years ago either. We all change with time. Small or significant changes are always happening. That is the fact. That’s life. Life changes. We have to change. But the kick is that whatever bullshit you went through before if that didn’t kill you, could potentially make you much stronger and wiser and make you who you are today.

One thing that annoys me is realizing that my life is full of things that don’t bring me much pleasure but are required to have or to do. Like jobs, for example. Like mortgage payments. Like job security. Like regular meals for the family. These fucking things don’t come from thin air, and somebody has to go out there and hustle. That’s what I do. I go out there and hustle. I can provide for my family for the time being, but on the other side, that imposed routine slowly eats me alive from the inside. I know that majority of my time is spent on the job and job-related bullshit, and that takes my physical time and mental capacity and fucking chips away at my young creative soul. It gets to the point where I can no longer live the life I used to and do things I love because there is always so much other work to do. There are all those needs and wants that I want to make sure my family has so we have a little chance to live without counting every fucking penny. However, there are consequences and sacrifices that one should be taking into consideration.

Will my son love me the same if I lose my job and all those perks? Would I be a better father if I became unemployed and just spend all my time with him while I can, while he’s still small, while everything is fun and games? He might love the stay-at-home dad option, but I know better. I know that I would never be able to focus on happiness, and I would never be able to be fully happy if I knew that I didn’t have any fucking money behind my poor little soul. I do try to spend a reasonable amount of time with my family regardless. I love spending time with my kid. I also hate when I have to work late and catch up on work at home while he’s knocking at my door asking me to let him in because he just wants to play. He’s a two-year-old child, the pure thing. He doesn’t know yet what life is about. He doesn’t know yet what it takes to manage this adult life. How many times did I hear him crying in the other room while I was working from home, and I couldn’t do shit because I was on some stupid fucking meeting, working, fucking listening to some douchebags about shit that doesn’t even matter to me anymore. It tears my heart and breaks my soul. Somehow this life keeps taking these weird turns and twists, and I feel like if not this, then there will be something else that will eat away my life. There will always be the next pain in the ass to follow, whether you want it or not. Why in the fuck, in this free and independent world, do I have to sacrifice the most valuable things in my life for the sake of some sort of security which supposedly helps us ensure a better and worry-less life? This social norm has been fucked up for a while now. The more you try to achieve to be more independent, the more you are enslaving yourself into your job or what have you, and that shit slowly occupies all your brain and soul and takes away all your free and precious personal time. This is the modern developed world we are living in today.

You probably wake up early in the morning because most jobs start early. If you have children, that’s even earlier for you. It doesn’t matter that you are tired, and the few hours you just slept did not help much at all. It doesn’t matter that you worked until late night or late evening, and there is still so much shit you need to finish by tomorrow. You want it or not, but you have to get up yet again and hustle one more fucking day. Your eyes are shot and red and tired. Your face has only one emotion, tiredness. You get older by the minute. The breathing is hard. There is this internal pain and discomfort that you have to drag with you around all day and into the night. Shit never goes right. There are always issues and problems at work. There are always problems at home too. You keep all that shit inside, and the more there is of it, the more it hurts. You hurt so often and so much that it becomes part of you now. You are the walking pain. You wish you could just walk the fuck away. Just quit that motherfucking job. Walk outside, breathe in the warm summer air, jump into your car and go. Go somewhere. It doesn’t matter as long as it is far away. Get out, get outside, enjoy the free blue sky and the birds, and the time you should have to enjoy always, but you never do. Go to the nearest bar and have a drink. Celebrate yourself. Fuck them all. Fuck those jobs! Your job has been a drag, and it always will be. And it always takes more and more of your life until you become a fucking slave. But then you realize that the bills are due, the bank account is running low, and the birthday of a loved one or a child is coming up. Your friends invited you to go out somewhere, and you just can’t afford to have your family going through the fucking government assistance program just because you don’t want to ruin your life with your job. You reminisced the good old and young days when shit was easy. Back then, you still could fuck off and walk out and change this around easily. Now, there is baggage. Now there is a family and responsibilities. By now, you are tired of fucking living with nothing and for nothing, and you want just a little bit of joy in this fucking life. I mean, how long can a person live in such misery? How do we get to live, period? Not much, as you will realize. There is just a little bit of life hidden somewhere behind all these fucking hustles and struggles and misery and depression.

Most people live this miserable “working-class” existence their entire lives. Somehow that becomes normal. That becomes your pride as a working man, your family, your fridge, your mortgage, your financed car, and all that other shit that people cannot live without. To have it, you must own it or at least go to work to pay for it. There is always a payment in our lives. Nothing’s free, pal. Everything costs money, stupid, ugly, dirty fucking money which we all are eager to earn and spend our lives making, collecting, investing, planning, spending, and dying for. I mean, not everyone can become a millionaire who doesn’t give a fuck about making daily life possible. There are so many hedge-fund babies the world can handle, and the rest have to be fucking peasants and physically work their asses off until they die, proudly like true working-class heroes. Somebody has to work to support all those rich fucks and everybody else. Somebody must work at the gas station, restaurant, bar, school, post office, construction, garbage company, etc. Today, we can clearly see that the great and powerful developed world as we knew it is not all that fucking great, and powerful, and invincible, and fucking A, not so much secure from pandemics and wars and shortages on so many things. And this is just the beginning, and this is looking to go only a downward spiral from here. Naturally, I am mentally well prepared for the worst, but I don’t know what to prepare for exactly and do not have the slightest idea about what the next day will bring. Sadly, I do not see the future at all of the bullshit going on in the world right now. It just seems like darkness all around.

I struggled a lot throughout the years with and without a job, and I know that I complain about the job while I have one, but I also know that if I lose this job, I will be fucked badly. Like probably half of the country, I am about two missing paychecks away from living on the street. All the things that now come for granted will be at risk or disappear quickly. The beauty of waking up and not worrying about paying your bills, rents, mortgages, and cars is very liberating. I think I can write much better when I am stressed about life, and the job is eating is fucking driving me bunkers, but if I didn’t have a job, my creativity would be evaporated, and all my thoughts would be about going and making some money. This is how this society is set up. You always have to work, and you always have to have that fear that will make you compliant. The fear of losing everything by sacrificing the most valuable in your life, your life. Somehow I need to and am still trying to figure out how to make it all work. How do I ensure that I can provide for my family, that we all can afford to live and do things we love, and that the fucking job is not taking away too much of my time, focus, health, and creative soul out of me?

The system was built so some will always live well, and some should always struggle. So many of these fucking mentors and entrepreneurs have made it in life, and now they are willing to share their secrets with anyone for a sum of money, providing lessons, books, podcasts, and all that other shit. One thing they all say that is the same is that you have to sacrifice everything, all your time, friends, family time, sleep, health, but you have to push through all the hardship, and eventually, you will fucking make it. Great fucking plan! Here I am sitting and wondering, how could I have all those things without killing my fucking life and soul? I guess that is the million-dollar question to be answered someday. The sacrifice has to come from somewhere.

Usually, the sacrifice has to be on your side. There is always an opportunity cost for anything. You have to decide which opportunity cost you are willing to take. What matters most to you right now that you should be going after, and what can be pushed to the side. I haven’t found a solution for that yet. I am still struggling. The more time passes, the harder the struggle becomes. The only light I can see is to enjoy this fucking crazy journey along the way, live for now, and be simply happy. There is no fucking reason to save all those millions for your retirement. I honestly think that once I am retired, I will not need anything, or not much would be necessary. I will be just like another constantly annoyed, grumpy old man complaining about life, the younger generation, and politics. If I am to miss any of these important life events just because I had a lot of “work” to do, I’d be fucking damned. If I had to bankrupt myself of every little joy in life just so I can live longer, what’s the fucking point of living longer without joy? You can’t take anything with you to the other side. The opportunity missed is the opportunity lost. Somebody once said, think, if you were on your deathbed; what missing opportunities will you regret more? It is always better to try and fail than not to try and regret forever. There will always be some work to do. There will always be somebody else in your place. There will always be the daily bullshit troubles. But there will only be a short period in this life when my son is two years old, and he is young and cute and funny and playful as he is right now, and he will be with me most of the time, and we can play and enjoy our time together. If I ever miss any of that, I wouldn’t be able to get that back at no cost. At retirement age or any other, all those precious things saved for later would be fucking useless waste of time and life. Life is too short to wait for retirement.

To all the working-class heroes out there, whatever you do, whatever makes you a few bucks today, remember one thing, it will not be like this forever, and anything will not last forever. The system that is banding you over will always be this way. Life will give you chances; you should be able to see them and take advantage. There will always be Uncle Sam, watching you closely and ensuring you have paid all your dues, but your life was not meant to be fifteen dollars an hour-for-ever. There are opportunities, other jobs, hobbies, solutions, and alternative ways of making a living. If you just keep looking out and thinking and voicing your troubles honestly to yourself, you will be able to notice the changes and see the opportunity for every problem. Life never goes in a straight line. There are ups and downs. We all should be aware of them. You must be honest with yourself first. Even if you are a restaurant worker, that can be your happy place in life too. You can make good money in a restaurant business, construction, office job, writing, painting, dancing, or something else. It is never too late to try new other things. It is never too late to ask yourself, what the fuck is making me happy? What matters to me most? How can I move along in life and make sure I stay afloat? There are so many sunrises to see.

The journey metaphor makes more sense than anything because you only live once. When this is over, there is nothing else and no second chance. Enjoying every little moment is the key. It’s the only thing you can control and must take full advantage of. Remember one thing, this is a one-way ticket ride, and once it’s over, it is over. There are no sequels. What would you be sorry for if today was your last day? What would you change? How would you live your life differently? “A working-class hero is something to be.”