Everyone has his or her own version of the “American Dream” tucked away somewhere in the nether-regions of her or his subconscious. Our personal versions of the “American Dream” are part of what motivates us to get out of bed every morning and live life.
Little Johnny wants to grow up and get married and have a family and own a home and be a fireman so he can spend his life saving the lives of others. Then Little Johnny wants to retire and travel and enjoy his final years.
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Little Suzie wants to grow up and get married and have a family and own a home and be a doctor so she can spend her life saving the lives of others. Then Little Suzie wants to retire and travel and enjoy her final years.
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Little Barack and Little George wanted to grow up to be politicians so they could meddle in people’s lives and screw over a country.
Everyone has a dream. Some people realize that dream, and the rest of us learn to settle.
Settling sucks.
Little Adventurer Rich wanted to grow up and get married and have a family and own a home and be a something-that-makes-a-lot-of-money-and-helps-a-lot-of-people-but-isn’t-dangerous-or-doesn’t-involve-sticking-his-hands-in-other-people’s-guts. Then Little Adventurer Rich wanted to retire and travel and enjoy his final years.
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Little Adventurer Rich got a cold slap across the face as a wake-up call. When you decide to grow roots in rural Nebraska, there is no such thing as a job where you can make a lot of money. If you don’t get the job that pays a lot of money, the retirement and travel associated with the retirement become pipe dreams.
I’m thankful for the marriage and the family and the house. The rest of my “American Dream” is things I will need to learn to live without. Well, I guess those things are already lacking, so I won’t need to learn to live without them… I need to learn that I will never have them. It’s called “settling”.
As I cruise through this ever-increasingly difficult mid-life crisis, things start to fall into perspective. I’m not the kind of guy who wants a fancy sports car or a token 20-something-year-old mistress to help realize unfulfilled dreams. I’m happy driving crappy used cars (even considering getting a minivan). My wife is my only link to sanity. If I lost her, I would lose all bearing on life. So, I’ll keep my 40-something-year-old model. Besides, the only 20-something-year-olds interested in old farts like me are after gold, and my veins are full of nothing but pyrite and cholesterol.
So, since I’m not looking for the typical remedies for my ills, I’ve been trying to figure out how to become less miserable. I look in the mirror and this old guy looks back at me, with his gray hairs and his frown lines, and I start to get pissed off at him. He looks so much older than I feel. Why didn’t he do something with his life? Why couldn’t he have been better looking or more self-confident? Why didn’t he take advantage of opportunities that I’m sure were available to him (yet, strangely enough, neither he nor I can think of any)? Why has he let me down? Ooh, sometimes I just want to throttle that loser in the mirror. He doesn’t look like the kind of guy who would ever be successful. He looks like a stupid goat farmer…
… goat farmer…
…GOAT FARMER!
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OH…EM…GEE! I look like a goat farmer! A stupid goat farmer! Being a goat farmer would be AWESOME! No stupid customer problems! No stupid technology! Just lots and lots of goats! You feed them, you breed them, you take care of them, maybe you milk them, then you kill them and you eat them. Maybe you sell them. Maybe you sell the milk or sell the meat. Maybe you hire them out to breed with someone else’s goats.
OH… EM… GEE! I could be a GOAT PIMP!
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If not goats, maybe ostrich, or rabbit, or some other semi-exotic meat that people are willing to buy. I wouldn’t make my riches being an exotic meat farmer, but being out on a farm, working with my hands, being responsible for only my own actions and relying only on my own efforts… I may not be able to retire, but I wouldn’t want to gouge my brains out through my ear holes before going to a “job” every day, so it is something I could see myself doing until I finally snap and they end up throwing me in a loony bin!
Maybe my family wouldn’t be able to have some of the things we have now, like satellite television or cell phones or Internet or new clothes or gas for the used cars or, you know, food to eat other than goat… but it would all be worth it! If you can’t make it to the top of the food chain doing something you hate, crawl to the bottom of the food chain raising goats!
Now, I just need some land and a shack to live in. I’m sure I can pick up some land on the cheap in Nebraska, right? And I’ll need some starter goats. Do they sell starter goat kits? Never mind, I’ll Google it later… while I still have Internet 🙂 And I just need to convince my family that we would be better off without all of the stupid “conveniences” or modern life. I’ll never be able to provide for my family in the ways I dreamed as a kid, so it’s time to change the dream!
Little Adventurer Rich wants to grow up and get married and have a family and own a home and sell that home and buy a goat farm and raise goats! Then Little Adventurer Rich wants to lose his mind and get locked up in a “facility” with lots of padded rooms where he will enjoy his final years dreaming of his goats…
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Finally, a dream I may be able to accomplish…