A little over a year ago I wrote a post about being addicted to change. That post is consistently one of my most popular and receives the most emphatic comments. But what’s interesting to me isn’t that a lot of people identify with what I said, but that over half of those people seem to want to squash their need for a dynamic lifestyle.
Our society breeds conformity and stability. Public education is designed to ensure that everyone is marshaled to the same pace as everyone else and everyone meets the same established milestones of knowledge at the same time. Deviation from the norm is met with reprimands or ostracization from the group. And don’t think that this changes as you get older, you just get better at coloring inside the lines and fooling yourself into thinking that you’re doing it because you want to.
University may allow you to pick a field of interest rather than having one forced upon you by the government in public school, but then you’re held to even stricter definitions of what is acceptable for that narrower slice of society. The enforced mediocrity of one institutional holding pen is replaced with the enforced elitism of another.
The corporate and professional working world may claim to do looking for new ideas and paradigm shifts and blue-sky solutioneering, but socially speaking it’s often about as conservative as it’s possible to get outside of a theocratic state. There are expectations about your behavior and lifestyle, both at and outside of work, that you have to meet in order to escape criticism.
The fact that I’ve dated three women in the last year seems to make me a ladies man in this environment. Using a ceramic plate instead of tupperware, and washing and reusing my plastic forks gets me comments and side glances. And even suggesting that you might want to go to school just to learn is met with looks of incredulity and confusion, as if I had suggested just setting $7000 in cash on fire. And I’m a single white male under 30, I don’t even have to factor in the well documented sexism and racism that’s rampant in corporate culture.
And that assumes that I have the sort of job that the rest of society attributes some level of respect to. If I quit my job as an aerospace software developer to become a waiter because I like people, well…. try explaining that move to about 95% of the human population. Everyone knows that your total worth is equivalent to your high score in pin-ball machine of life, so to them, choosing to make less money is like choosing to fail. It doesn’t matter if you are more happy with less money and responsibility, your score is lower, so you lose.
So really, given all of this I probably shouldn’t be surprised that people are ashamed of their addiction to change. In this sort of society you can’t even wear pink if you’re a guy without getting comments, let alone desire something as mind-blowing as wanting to experience a new city every 12 months.
I mean if you don’t have a steady job what are you going to do without a company gym membership and dental plan? Just run outside and brush your teeth consistently? That’s crazy. You need some soul-destroying stability in your life.
I find that functioning in society is sort of like walking in tightly packed crowd of people all moving in the in same direction. If the direction or speed you want to move at is even a little different you’ll suddenly find yourself coming up against resistance. It probably won’t be violent, it might just be passive or occasionally verbal, but it’s there. The thing is resistance doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong, it just means you’re doing something different.
If you’re going to dance in a crowd you might step on some people’s toes, and some people might think you’re crazy, but that doesn’t mean you should stop dancing.
sorry i’m a bit confused, this is coming from the guy who has decided to drop the new ‘risky’ things he was doing, for the stable secure route? well at least the blog lets you talk about things you wish you could do and the things that get in the way.
By: joey on May 31, 2009
at 8:57 pm
Well, to be fair, there is a difference between taking a risk and doing something that is mathematically proven to make you financially insolvent.
By: Eric Hacke on June 1, 2009
at 9:56 am
good point, i’m glad you included that in your blog. oh wait, you didn’t. i guess that would have gotten in the way of your online persona.
p.s. props on the wiki site.
By: joey on June 1, 2009
at 9:21 pm
Last week I was going to open a bakery. I love to bake. And I’ve come up with some pretty fun recipes. I decided it would be fun and that it would be fun enough to make me feel alright about owning property somewhere. Thought I would handle the idea of being rooted here.
This week… I kinda want to move to Vegas.
It’s funny how deciding to slow/stop change, is a big change.
Seems similar to taking a risk by not risking.
By: tigger on June 3, 2009
at 2:42 am
“Everyone knows that your total worth is equivalent to your high score in pin-ball machine of life, so to them, choosing to make less money is like choosing to fail.”
—
as usual, a great read. and no, that’s not the only quotable quote in your blog post; but quoting them all is quoting your entire entry.
on a personal note, i’ve been subject to change for the past year and while it was extremely difficult in the beginning, and perhaps even more difficult in the end, the in-between was quite the roller-coaster ride that i would never ever trade for anything else. i won some, i lost some. now i guess there’s only looking forward to the future. moving on, as the say.
—
“If you’re going to dance in a crowd you might step on some people’s toes, and some people might think you’re crazy, but that doesn’t mean you should stop dancing.”
By: elijahspeaks on June 6, 2009
at 9:26 pm
didn’t you used to write a blog or something….
By: joey on July 14, 2009
at 12:13 pm
Waiting, waiting, waiting for Dubai post. C’mon man. Camping is no excuse.
By: Emma on July 15, 2009
at 4:51 pm
Excellent bit about choosing a lifestyle that might be perceived as a “step backward.” I get this attitude from my family a lot, despite the fact that I’m coming up on 30 years old–or perhaps because of that. For a bright young girl to quit college and spend the next six years moving about the country, working at Starbucks, seems insane–but I honestly had the time of my life.
Glad I stumbled across your blog!
By: greengeekgirl on August 1, 2009
at 8:42 am