On Youth And Being Broke

You and me, if you’re reading this in your late twenties, represent the group of people who have just started to believe that we can make our own way in this world. Let’s exclude the unfortunate mentally ill, disabled, and those who are enabled but has the mentality of a potato. I am speaking for us the young, mentally normal, physically healthy humans who need money.

With our basic instinct to survive, we work for food and other primary needs. If it’s the only case, then I won’t need to worry too much. I have enough food in a container next to my one-person bed. They’re like a full stock of deer meat in a warm cave chamber for our ancestors. I can rest for a couple of days sheltering, sharpening my hunting gears or probably making babies with my cave women. Unfortunately, rest-in-cave after hunting is no longer a solution. We need constant resources for food sustainability and positive self-esteem.

In the psychology of typical normal human, self-esteem is the evaluation of self. The positive self-esteem demands the need for recognition, both from others and self. It’s the business of adding our values by owning stuff and creating impressive persona for ourselves and others. Me writing this article is an endeavor to impress my editor, general readers, and her. The proposition that I’m learning to write is true, but then you’re going to ask why I learn to write. My answer is esteem. Or self-actualization on the higher ground. To make myself happy and not suffer is the normal term. To do I need resources. Therefore, I need money.

With our ultimate spirit, vigor, freshness and thirst for esteem, you and me are struggling to find and maintain the springs of joy and happiness. It can be as simple as feeding a hungry cat, feeding a family or feeding an entire population of a province in Africa. Or it can be gained from owning an expensive cat, owning a wealthy family or owning a country under your control.

As an independent and the only sponsor for our self-promotion, we’re threatened by the constant lack of funding. I’ve been working on a project that will buy me the newest phone. By the time I own the phone, I know I’ll want other stuff [to say ‘I’ll NEED other stuff’ is problematic]. I create the chain of wanting, not necessarily needing. Another way to see this is I am programmed to escape every boring situation I’m in. My current phone is boring. I want that phone on TV. My afternoon is boring. What about travelling to see an afternoon in another city? I need constant funding for escaping.

At this moment, I am escaping the boring state of not doing anything. I am writing. It’s the better option I have because other escape plans are quite expensive. Why are you reading this article? Are you escaping a boring situation? Now this article starts to sound boring. Escape point? You can think of porn. Too bad it’s probably buffering. Too expensive to buy a bigger bandwidth. Then you have some other options left. Reading comics, stalking your exes, making alter Facebook accounts or just continue reading. The point is we have options. Probably the most precious thing we have as young people.

I am bored already. I don’t know where this is going. In my 28th years of life, I still have some options I can do with the limited resources I still own.  I can choose to stop writing and call some friends for a collective endeavor to escape this boring evening. Maybe playing video games or going somewhere for beverages. I have the options. However, I’m limited by the amount of money I have. To solve this, I can work my ass off working like a dog and get a lot of money or, I can hold myself back a little, contemplate, and find a cheaper creative way to kill boredom and reach a higher, more dignified kind of self-esteem and actualization.

We have the options. We have the energy. We’re just broke. Not having a mental stroke.