Much ado about nothing

Friday, October 2, 1998

Much ado about nothing

LIFE: People follow safe route, toiling toward happiness but
should take risks, live a little

Have you ever thought about life? I mean really thought about
it? No, not about birth or marriage – I’m talking about the
important stuff, such as how we spend the majority of our time.

I have no doubt in my mind that this will sound pessimistic,
cynical and altogether misanthropic, but it troubles me to no end
how every chapter in our lives is spent furiously preparing for the
next. And ultimately, the only thing we’re really preparing for is
death.

Now, before you write me off as just another one of those dark
people who spend their time writing apocalyptic poetry and running
around warning others, "The end is near!," realize that in many
ways I am just your ordinary Joe and that I am usually a fairly
optimistic and idealistic individual.

Unfortunately, I am also a fairly practical individual, and it
is out of this pragmatism that I realize how pointless life can
seem.

Think about it. When you’re 2, you’re walking, garbling phrases
and eating solid foods. But nobody’s heralding these achievements
or giving you a "You are special" certificate. It’s all about how
you’re going into preschool this fall and how by next year you’ll
be able to count to 10.

When you’re in high school, life revolves around SAT classes, AP
tests and GPAs, those infamous acronyms that will make or break
your future because it’s all about getting into college.

Once you’re in college, new acronyms such as GREs and LSATs and
MCATs threaten your already unstable existence as you laboriously
toil toward graduate school on too little sleep and too much
Starbucks.

All in all, a good deal of us spend the first quarter of our
lives, from age zero to about 25, in the educational system just to
be adequately prepared for the "real world."

Once we’re in the real world, though, everything centers around
money.

It’s all about who’s got it, what you need to do to get it and
how you can get as much of it as possible. After all, to a certain
extent money is power, and power is the ability to at least live
comfortably and provide for your family.

Hey, if we plan on sending our kids to UCLA, we had better start
a savings account when we get our first job.

By the time we’ve acquired the education, the money and the
descendants to carry on the family name, we’re basically decrepit,
old farts.

The trips to Europe we said we’d take, the fancy items we said
we’d splurge on – both of these phrases have one thing in common:
They were both said with the addition of "one day" at the end. But
by the time that day comes, we can barely sit up in bed, let alone
pack up some bags and fly off to some extravagant, exotic
vacation.

What about the education we worked our butts off to acquire?
Hopefully, you contributed something to the world during your
9-to-5 grind all those years.

And what of all that money? Well, 75 percent of it goes toward
maintaining your withering body with machinery for the last quarter
of your life. And as for the other 25 percent, well, let’s just
hope your kids will love you a little more after you’re gone. Makes
you yearn for one of those puffy clouds in your afterlife, doesn’t
it?

But enough with my morbid, drawn-out thoughts. My purpose is not
to make you go out today and buy a burial plot. I merely wish to
make you ponder how ridiculously we spend our lives working toward
what we’ll never really get. And if this is the case, perhaps we
need to re-evaluate our take on life.

Of course, I am not advocating that everyone go out and blow
their life savings on the jet skis they always wanted or
despairingly quit their jobs and live off the government
cheese.

There is such a thing as being smart with our resources – saving
money so that our kids can go to college, motivating ourselves to
work hard in school for the intrinsic value of learning.

When I speak of re-evaluation, simply becoming conscious of this
"enigma that is life" is the first step in the right direction.

We must come to terms with knowing that life is designed so that
we err on the secure side; in a world that presents us with
constant risk-taking, we learn to be practical and rational so that
we minimize our risks – even though we may never maximize our
gains.

Why do you think insurance companies are some of the most
corrupt yet lucrative businesses in existence? Because they play
off of and exploit these (justifiable) fears of ours: that our
house might burn down or that we could die early.

If we don’t protect ourselves and others in the unlikely event
that something awful happens, we’ll have nothing at all.

Not just confined to the corporate world, we utilize
self-insurance in everyday interactions, building imaginary safety
nets.

When we go on vacation, we may never try some incredible sports
such as bungee-jumping or hang gliding only because something awful
might happen.

We may stay in a secure job we despise and never pursue our
dream career only because that job might fall through.

While these safety nets may preserve our bodies, I wonder how
good they are for our minds and our hearts.

You see, in evaluating ourselves and our lives, the intangible
aspects must be contemplated.

In an age where preservation of the exterior is paramount, where
health food and going to the gym are signs of "really living," we
become too caught up in sustaining our vital parts, when the most
vital parts of all are really what lies within.

I offer this not as another motivational speaker’s monotonous
mantra of "It’s what’s on the inside that counts," but as a sincere
answer to life’s puzzle.

In light of this puzzle, we need to risk the outside to sustain
the inside, which means taking the occasional risks that allow us
to really live. Hang glide now for the challenge and the
exhilaration, take that vacation in Rome while we can still see the
art, and perhaps – dare I say it – remove ourselves from the
pressure and exertion of the academic realm to experience life.

I know we all have GPAs to keep up and resumes to write, but
when we look back on our lives, the most impressive resume of all
won’t be on paper.

Lisa Silver is a second-year communications studies student who
loves nothing more than imposing her views on others. She can be
reached (if you dare) at [email protected].

Comments, feedback, problems?

© 1998 ASUCLA Communications Board