Why do we kill our bodies and minds working so hard? Why do we spend almost our entire lives sitting at a desk away from friends and family. Why do we choose to be unhappy doing labor that we often do not want to do, that puts money in the pockets of people who will not have to work a day in their life. The answer seems pretty simple: money. We need money to survive. To eat. To be happy. To do things with and for our friends and family. To give our children a good life. To get a good education. To be able to receive medical care. To have a roof over our heads. To live. Whoever said that money doesn’t make you happy was just straight up wrong, because in the system that has been put in place, you do need money to be happy. Because without it you often cannot live as happy a life. You may be sick and cant afford medical care. You could be in need of therapy or psychiatric treatment, but if you cannot afford it, it will be difficult to get that care. It could also be simple things; being unable to treat yourself to some good food after a long days work; having a day to yourself without needing to go to work; or having that car you’ve wanted since you were a kid (or even a car at all). This is not to say that one cannot be happy without money, but money sure does help.

The system that we have now is not a good one. I do not have a different plan in place, but I sure know that what we are doing now is not nearly close to perfect. It is extremely depressing to know that you have to work like 40 years just to be able to retire and enjoy the last 10-20 of them. The most interesting concept that was in one of the readings was Emotional Labor. Coming off of a shift feeling tired and drained and shitty, knowing tomorrow you have to do it all again is one of the worst feelings. It takes a large mental toll to keep a happy face on for 6 hours while eating very little and being on your feet the whole time. I would often come home and not even talk to my family because of how drained I felt. I would just quickly eat some food, go up to my room, and collapse on my bed. Expecting someone to do that for so many years while dealing with the other stressors of life is just cruel. And the only alternative being starvation? That does not sound like a system I want to participate in. It’s also just taxing on your body in general. I have not been in the workforce long, but I already have had some effects from working long hours. When I used to work as a cashier I would come home exhausted, my back and feet hurting, and my eyes strained from looking at the monitor all day. Sometimes these feelings would go away during the night, but other times they persisted. Doing something like that for years is unthinkable. I would not be able to keep doing that, I would go insane.