Swimming Upstream

Sometimes it takes a whole lot to keep up. I don't mean just getting up in the morning and dragging your ass to work. There is just so much more to it than that. In order to succeed, it takes being a lot smarter than everyone around you, even though being smarter more often than not merely means paying attention.

I went out for drinks with a very good friend of mine this week. We hadn't seen each other in a long time, which is to say two months. Truth be known, we've been drifting apart for a while, but who wants to dwell on that. So my friend and I are drinking and telling stories, then he tells me that I have changed. He says I am more focused on money than I used to be. I don't want to seem rude, but since I don't drive a new car, wear designer clothes, or sleep with expensive prostitutes, I had to wonder where he was coming from. Turns out my friend has opted out.

With twins just over a year old, a job in a call center, and a wife who makes way more than he does, I would think my friend would be clamoring for a more lucrative career. Instead he has decided to live life one day at a time and whatever happens happens. So my lifestyle is now by contrast some strange mission of greed because I am still talking about owning a home and weird stuff like that.

As much as I may have tried to absorb the criticism, I couldn't. I just realize the frustration of my generation growing up in L.A. We won't have the houses are parents had. We won't have the job with longevity our parents had. Our generation is mobile and transitory. Our futures are just completely different and there is no model. So my friend has decided to simply conform to the reality that is. He hasn't opted out of anything, he isn't running on empty, he has merely turned downstream and is floating with the current.

I don't know where the current will take him. As for me, I am going to continue swimming upstream hoping that I am the one headed in the right direction.