Ah yes, the eternal quest for "feeling valued" at work — as if we're all in a corporate therapy session instead of just here to solve problems, get paid, and go home. American companies love inventing emotional debt as a substitute for job security. Maybe next time I get laid off, they’ll throw in a heartfelt Slack emoji to ease the blow.
If we can’t fantasize at something that’s supposed to take a third of our day to day, man, that’s depressing. I do understand that we need to be practical and do the job and get paid, but at some point one wakes up and wonders what the hell is one living for. Work is usually the last thing on my list, but I quickly wake up again and lick mister dollar’s ass because I need money for food. You can manage to twist the meaning of the situation and feel good with yourself, but we are slaves, modern slaves.
That's part of the problem with American culture — everything revolves around having more: more stuff, more money, more status. You're so bound to accumulation that you forget there's a different kind of richness in having less. Less to worry about, less to maintain, less to chase.
You could be fruitful and genuinely happy by simplifying, by letting go of this obsession with ownership and control. But instead, life becomes a constant cycle of buying, upgrading, storing, insuring, and eventually throwing away. It’s exhausting, and it never really fills the void.
You’ve been sold the idea that freedom means choice — but only if you can afford it. Meanwhile, the more you have, the more you owe: in time, energy, attention. And what gets lost in all this is the space to just be — to create, to connect, to enjoy what’s already around you.
Happiness doesn’t come from what you own. It comes from how lightly you carry your life. And somewhere along the way, that got forgotten.
