Killing Yourself to Live

"Well people look and people stare

Well I don't think that I even care

You work your life away and what do they give?

You're only killing yourself to live

Killing yourself to live

- Killing Yourself to Live, Black Sabbath

One thing or another got me thinking during the week about what seems like modern society's obsession with having plans, careers, wealth and status. A lot of people have these traits in abundance but have little emotional or spiritual wealth. I know it's Ironic me harping on about how people seem so consumed by their jobs, their goals and their collective statuses because I myself don't have a career to call my own. I'm nearing a landmark in my life my 30^th birthday (I’m actually the guts of two years away from it) but why aren’t the alarm bells ringing in my head as I approach this milestone? Why aren’t I trying to keep up with the world’s many Joneses? I don’t know mainly because I lack drive, but another part of me feels I don’t have anything in common with today’s consumer driven, status-laden, oversaturated celeb/fad obsessed ego driven world. Sometimes I long for a simpler time like when my parents grew up in. But who knows like a modern paradox once I’d have that I’d probably hate it.

As I vacantly stared at the TV screen during the week trying to take in the images before my eyes of the devastating super typhoon Haiyan that hit the Philippines this week. The storm-ravaged cities  full of sobbing bare stick thin bare footed locals milling around the hubris and debris of there once meagre possessions. An even stronger feeling came over I couldn’t connect on any sort of level with these poor souls in other words I couldn’t really care less as long as it didn’t affect me or the ones I LOVE. I should have felt disgusted with myself, but I didn’t. I took note mentally of how it seems these poor people of already little material wealth or status seem to be historically pounded with nature's many hissy fits. But I remained unmoved as to their obvious plight, I didn’t rush to get on a social media website and air my grievances for those poor souls pretending I cared whilst I carefully and methodically crafted my online persona.

I have no doubt however that the people of the Philippines will rebuild their lives no doubt aided by their strong community spirit and love for their fellow man. I then wondered what if a typhoon or storm of this magnitude hit Europe? Would it if only temporarily put a stop to the rat race? Give people a reality check? Would it force people to re-connect with what it means to be an actual loving caring human being? A few further questions popped into my head (no of which I might add do I have any of the answers for)

  

- Why do people kill themselves in jobs & careers they hate?

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 Is it for perceived status? To fit in amongst their peers?

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   Why don’t we in our day to day interactions remember the person behind the phone, behind the e-mail, behind the news story?

Why has life become so mechanical and everyone has to be so rushed?

It has to be one of the most aggravating phrases in the modern lexicon ‘I’m so busy’ or ‘I’m so busy lately’ along with ‘I just don’t have time’ really? why? Are you running a country or something are responsible for a race of people?! That you don’t have the time to respond to an e-mail, text or phone back someone who has contacted you in the same day? (There’s another word for that it’s called a lack of manners or rudeness, but that’s another topic I could give the week ranting about.)

At the end of the day we really only have a few years on this planet. It’s not anyone will stand over your gravestone one day and say what a great solicitor that guy was or wasn’t she just a fabulous banker. No one gives a shit about that stuff. When you die you’re usually instantly replaced, life invariably moves on. Bar your loved ones who will always grieve you and will know the real you, you will die having made little impact on the wider world.

So then why do people waste their precious few years on this earth pleasing other people rather than themselves? People in poorer areas of the world seem a lot wealthier when it comes to matters of the mind, rich with deeper family and personal connections. There’s no one-upmanship in their world, no one is concerned with what you do for a living, no one is concerned with being seen as more important than their neighbour or being so varied and up skilled. More and more people in the developed world are dying from health condition bought about by the many stresses accumulated from work and their professional life. In these instances, you really have to ask yourself what is it all for?

Another thing citizens of the third world have in common is they live within their own means. We, on the other hand, do not. We see money as power as status, we use it to upscale to buy a bigger house, a better car, fill our houses with unimportant immaterial gains. Are we afraid to change job or career paths because we’re afraid of what other people will think of us? Are our egos so shallow that we’re afraid to follow our hearts?

As I write this my uncle in law is sitting in a hospice somewhere in south London riddled from head to toe with a now incurable cancer. His already weak and frail body can no longer sustain the blasts of chemo used to treat this illness. As he passes his days in the hospice with I presume a lot of time to reflect on his life I doubt he’ll look back on a life wasted. One of life’s characters he can be pigeonholed as a maverick, a jack of all trades. A man never afraid to take a chance, a gamble, to try his hand at various jobs or care less what people might have thought of him. He had many an up and down in his life, but he never lost he verve and lust for life. A man never to do things by society’s norms. It didn’t stop him from helping to rare three talented and driven kids who now are pursuing careers in law, the media and the financial sector (for those status chasers out there).

My 5-year-old neighbour is also convalescing in a children’s hospital in Dublin just now. Recovering from the incredibly rare disease that is Guillian Barre syndrome. A disease that attacks your very core with a form of temporary paralysis. At the moment it looks like he won’t be home for Christmas, he’s learning to walk again, he receives constant physio and needs constant around the clock care. Two human beings at different stages of their lives, who will no doubt, have a greater understanding of life. The true meaning of life what it means to get up in the morning healthy and well. Material wealth and status count for nothing when you’re ill (it might get you a better standard of care, but that’s about it).

Maybe we should as a people take a step back, to slow down a bit, to smell the proverbial roses, to re-connect with our fellow man. Through the course of this update I know I’ve said nothing original, nothing that has been said a thousand million times before. But sometimes I just wonder what’s it all about?!