A Backwards World?

By Anant Mathur (17 March 2010)

This week I want to write about a thought that came into my mind a while ago when I was thinking about how backwards the world we live in is.

Think about all that we go through in life and then we end up being 60 or 70 years old and are unable to enjoy anything. We have finally reached the pinnacle of life and have the means to do whatever we want and nothing needs to be done. The children are all grown up, house is paid for, there’s a BMW parked in the driveway. All we can do is find new ways of spending our salaries or pensions.

For most of us, life goes something like this…

1. We’re born
2. We go to school and get an education.
3. After we graduate we look for a job
4. Once a job is secured we find that perfect mate (if we haven’t already) and get married.
5. Then we have children.
6. We help our children get the best possible education so they can get a great job.
7. Once our kids find a great job, they leave the nest and start the cycle again or we live with them through their cycle until we’re dead.

But throughout this cycle there are a lot of heartaches and pain, the number one problem being that we never seem to have enough money to pay for the needs of our children. And I think the system is to blame for that.

The way I see it, the system needs to change, instead of getting a low income when we’re in our 20s and it gradually going up as we’re promoted and get older, wouldn’t it make more sense if we get paid a higher income in our 20s and we can save for the future instead of struggle through life. Think about it, why do we need to be paid $150,000 in our 60s? When our kids have left or are working and the only person we have to support is our spouse.

We start out in our 20s making, let’s say, approximately $25000 or so per year. Part of that goes for the student loan(s) we took out to complete our education, some goes towards that piece of junk parked in the driveway, majority of it goes towards rent and groceries, and if there’s anything left over we might go grab a beer with our friends and bitch about how we hate our job, our boss and how underpaid we are.

So, wouldn’t it make more sense to be making $150,000 (per year) when we’re in our 20s, we can enjoy spending time with our kids without the worry of how we will pay for their Braces, Piano Lessons, iPod, xBox, or in certain cases that operation they really need. We'll have no worries about mortgage payments, and we can drive a BMW while we're young, instead of when we're in our 60s and too afraid to go fast. And as we get older we have money saved, so we can start getting paid less. In our 30s we make an average of $100,000 per year. In our 40s we make $70, 000, and $50,000 in our 50’s. By the time we make it to our 60s the average yearly income drops to $30,000 or $25,000. Then when we retire, we get our pensions, the same as in the other system. Doesn't that seem like a more interesting approach to how we should be living?

But the way we’re brainwashed into life, people will wonder what the hell is wrong with me. They want to get paid more not less as they progress through life and work harder and harder. But to them I say… wouldn’t it be nice if we lived in a world where we felt like we belonged instead of strugglin’ and bitchin’ our way through life?

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