How's Work And My Thoughts On Life (long)

Well, another week at the jizob has passed for me. Since the #2 most frequent question I get these days is "how's work?" I guess I will write about how's work.

First, the good. I am very thankful to have a pretty good job in these times. The people at Northrop Grumman are all very cool, I haven't met a single person I don't like there. The pay and benefits are nothing to complain about at all.

The job itself is pretty interesting. To work in the military defense industry is to work on the cutting edge of technology, pretty much. I definitely think I will enjoy what I do here as an electrical engineer. And surprisingly, it is pretty close to what I expected from this career path when I took my first steps in this direction.

Of course, with the good comes the bad. Like I said, there's not a whole lot I can complain about the job or the company. Maybe the one thing is the commute. Every day I spend about 1 and a half to 2 hours just driving to and from work. (It's a good thing I foresaw the need to buy a comfortable car that I would love driving because I am spending so much time in the commute alone). I know there are people who put up with worse drives, but to think that it costs me about 8 hours, $10 in toll, and $25 in gas per week just to get to and from the job pretty much convinces me that I need to move closer. I mean, that's like 400 hours, $1750 a year, you know?

But the real thing that is tough about working life is the lack of freedom and the lack of variety. I'm having problems getting used to the fact that my Mondays-Fridays will end up being pretty much the same routine over time. And that my weeks in general will start to run together. I don't even have a lot of other responsibilities, like a house or a family or even a pet. But it still seems like every day, I am constantly flooded with things to do up to the point where I am too tired to go on and it's time for bed.

Yeah, bedtime, and Friday afternoon for that matter, never come soon enough. Before I know it, I'm looking ahead to catching up on rest during the next holiday.

Now, I don't think of myself as a stranger to hard work, but maybe the bottom line is that I still miss college life. Sure, I studied a lot at school, but at least there were times when I could sit down and just do nothing for a bit. At least every day was a little different from the day before. I'd see different faces, go to different buildings, and eat different meals at different times. I could wear ripped jeans any day of the week (not just Saturday), and sleep whenever the hell I felt like it. These days, I feel like an old man with his routine; I feel like a slave to my daily schedule and habits.

Remember that old board game called LIFE? You spin a wheel, and move your little plastic car along a winding path. Along the way, you pick a career (if you're lucky, you get to be a rich doctor or lawyer), you buy a house, maybe you go to college to get a degree, you add little pegs to your car when you get a wife and kids, and basically just a bunch of random stuff happens to you until you reach the end. The person who wins is the one who has the most money at retirement.

I know this was just a board game, but it bothers me to think that in some way, my own life might resemble Milton Bradley's oversimplified version. I don't want to follow a winding course laid out for me, just taking whatever comes my way until I'm too old to continue, have grandkids, and retire on a pile of money I've managed to collect throughout the years.

I don't believe in doing stuff for the sake of doing stuff. I don't like doing things simply because that's what I'm "supposed to do."

If I get married, I wanna do it because I've found the girl I love and because I want to spend the rest of my life with her. If I have kids, it should be because I will love them and enjoy raising them and watching them grow. When I earn money, I want it to truly be a "store of future pleasure." I want to spend it on people I care about (including myself), I want to use it for a good cause, and I want to leave my children with a better life in their generation just like my parents worked hard to do the same for me.

The last thing I want is to make money and stash it all up in the bank, just so I can say "I win" at the end of the game of life. There are few thoughts that make me sadder than the idea that on my death bed, I am considered no more than the sum of my possessions. I think unfortunately, somewhere along the way we all lose sense of the more meaningful parts of life, we miss out on the real beauty of life.

To the 3rd grade kids I teach in Sunday School, life is about how nice their teacher is, or if their best friend can sleep over this Friday. To a high schooler, it's about getting good grades so they can get into a good college and get a good job. To a lot of my friends in college, they decided life was about scoring as many chicks as possible. To other friends, life was about contributing to society and accomplishing great things by which we may be remembered. For my grandpa, life is about how he did in mah-johng for the day.

What does this mean? That everyone's life has different meaning? Or that at different points in our lives, we naturally seek different purposes? Are some purposes more noble than others? Are some people's lives worth more?

Consider the thought-provoking words written by mcpheenys in one of his recent blogs:

"it's all relative." this statement is very true. ok, say a billionaire is bitching that his tivo that he ordered hasn't come, so he didn't get to tape real world, and see if that skank bi-shelle is pregnant. and he's crushed. but someone says, "there are homeless people starving on the streets, and all you care about is tivo." but this billionaire is still feeling a lot of pain because he has no tivo. don't tell me homeless people have bad days everyday. there are some days where a homeless person will find a crack pipe in the garbage or a pizza crust on the ground, and it will be one of his best days, compared to his normal day. maybe they are used to being homeless. anyways, i'm not saying that the life of a homeless person is the same as a billionaire, but you can't assume that a billionaire has a better life than a homeless person. maybe sucking dick for crack brings someone much happiness, and money can't always make people happy. but i don't know, cause i haven't been homeless or a billionaire. so basically that is what life is about, maintaining high happiness levels.

I wish I had the answer to "what is the meaning of life" that the world's greatest philosphers throughout history couldn't agree on. But of course I do not. No, I don't agree that the meaning of life is "maintaining high happiness levels," though being happy with what you have is a much better approach than watching Cribs all day and sitting around wishing you had what the millionaires have.

To me, what's ultimately important is not whether or not I drive a nice car, have a beautiful family, or win the Nobel Peace Prize. At the risk of sounding gay, I believe that on my deathbed, I want to look back and be able to say, on the road of life, I enjoyed the view and I stopped to smell the flowers. And I don't want to ride along and follow someone else's path, I want to live on my own terms and by my own beliefs.

Being happy is important, but when I was little, I was so happy when we had 2 recesses per day instead of one. On the other hand, when my mom threw out my paper airplane, I was so unhappy. What does any of that mean to me now? It doesn't mean jack.

In the long run, living for happiness is an attractive thought, but it is also an empty pursuit. Basically, you are looking at your life as if it were an extra-large serving of cherry ICEE. You keep sucking the sugary-sweet slush because it tastes good and makes you feel happy. You don't wanna drink it too slow, or else it might start melting and you will miss out on some happiness. Don't drink too fast, or else it will give you a headache and you will end up feeling unhappy in that way too. But eventually, every ICEE reaches the bottom when it's just a watery mess and you throw it out. Then what?

Is this what happens when we get old and die? Do we just say, well, it was fun while it lasted and now it's time to go? If so, why doesn't someone just please kill me now. I don't wanna turn into some worthless watery ICEE.

When I mentioned the "beauty of life," I have to admit that I don't completely understand what those words mean either. It sure does sound nice, doesn't it? But when I think about it, nobody lives forever, everybody gets old and dies, yet we must be more than cups of half-frozen-juice, waiting for the last bit of sweetness to be used up. There has to be a reason why we are here and why we continue to live in spite of our inevitable end.

In so many ways to me, life is beautiful. Simple things tell me this. When I hold hands with Olivia, life is beautiful (hold your snickering). When I drive down I-57 at midnight in my Nissan Maxima listening to Siamese Dream, life is beautiful. When I see my mom smile, life is beautiful. I imagine that when I have kids and watch them grow, life will be very beautiful. There are probably millions of things I have yet to discover about life that I will eventually find to be so beautiful. Not just things that make me happy, but moments that make me realize that we are much more than that cup of ICEE or some squirrel lookin for a nut.

Though I can't neccessarily explain all the reasons or give you the best examples of the beauty of life, there is no doubt in my mind that it is beautiful. No one's gonna convince me that we are here to just satisfy our needs and seek happiness and die. Nor am I just a little peg in a little plastic car moving along a game board with everyone else, spinning a wheel to see what space I land on and what kind of disaster/fortune happens to me, until I reach the end and all I have to show for it is how much money I have, how many kids I leave behind, and what did I accomplish.

Sorry that my blogs have been so long. I don't have much opportunity to write as often, so when I do, all my writing energy spills over into a huge muddle of confusion at once.

I guess at the age of 22 and 7/9ths or so, there is still maybe 60 or 70 years ahead of me. Who knows whether or not my views now will change by the time I'm 25, let alone 80? But this is what I believe right now. It's not good to chug along and work and just survive until you get old and reach the end. Keep an open mind and take what comes, but also stay in control of your own path.

What does this have to do with "how's your job"? Well, as much as I like where I'm at and what I'm doing, I guess, the creeping worry is always there in the back of my mind that I will end up falling into a life of habit and neccessity.

I think it's kind of like how a marriage or relationship is. When you first meet a girl or get married, there's that "honeymoon period" where everything seems right and you don't have any questions or doubts about what you are doing. But what happens when it is no longer fresh and new every day? You do realize that to live in a honeymoon forever is an unrealistic and unhealthy expectation, but you don't wanna end up just "going through the motions." The real test is whether or not there is something deeper that can take you beyond the initial excitement.

Well, it kind of seems to me that the first 22 and 1/2 years of my life have been something of a honeymoon. When you're in kindergarten, you look forward to 1st grade. In high school, you look forward to college. To me, there's never been a question of "where do I go next?" because it's always made sense. Everyone tells you that you need school and I never questioned it.

Scene from Tokyo Breakfast: If nigga no go to school, nigga no get a job. If nigga no get a job, nigga no make no money. If nigga no make no money, nigga no be able to afford BMW 7-series, niggaaaaa...

Like I mentioned before, college is a time of great freedom, and I would say that it is probably the epitome of life's honeymoon. Even though you know it won't last forever, you enjoy it and try to convince yourself that your life will be like that.

At this point, it seems like a soft but persistent voice is saying to me, "welcome to the real world." Not knowing what to expect from the real world is an uneasy feeling. I'm not used to the idea of working at some job and just going with it until the next thing happens, whether I get fired, or decide that it sucks too much and quit, or get a better offer, or even until I retire 40 years later.

What's next for me? A BMW-7-series? Probably not. I guess I can't expect to find the answer to life's questions from writing a little blog. But believe me, I will continue to search for them. And the day I stop wondering and stop thinking about these questions will probably be the day I shoot myself in the head and end it all myself (don't worry, I won't really do that). But maybe that is the point of life, to search for its meaning. Haha that is probably getting a little too deep and abstract for me.

Well, thanks for reading. Hopefully nobody is mad at me for wasting their time with my worthless drivel.