The Landlord Paradox

So rent prices are soaring. That's both good and bad for me. Well, I guess it's good for me and bad for everyone else. Rents in my hometown have increased about 11% in the last year alone, which for a $1000/mo property, is a shiny new lease of $1,110. Great for landlords and horrible for renters.

The rental prices are getting so bad, a new report in my hometown shows that homelessness is increasing with rent prices -- people are basically getting priced out of their hometown and are having to hit the street.

One thing I don't understand about the rent markets right now is how they are working. How are housing prices going up so much that local jobs are not paying enough to live in a house in the town, yet there are people flooding the area with enough money to push others out?

I suppose, after all of my education, a hole has been revealed in my idiotic education. At a fundamental level, I don't understand how there is more money coming into a place to pay rents than is being produced in a place from wages? That is what we are facing, after all.

The rent prices in my hometown are being increased by demand, which means there is a glut of people who are willing to pay, but a shortage of places to house them. With vacancy rates so low, the housing industry should be exploding, yet the price of rent is just increasing. Where is this glut of people coming from and how are they paying these rents?

Clearly, I don't get it. I would love to have it explained. Are there people out there with enough money in the bank to throw it away on rent? Are these newcomers somehow better suited to higher paying jobs, elsewhere than the town itself (commuters)? Are they better at managing money and living slim with high rents and mediocre wages?

My current theory is that there are numerous people moving in with external help. These groups come from families with money, or from other places where wages were very high (e.g., California, Texas, or New York-like places), and living costs were low, relative to income.

Now, another theory is the trust fund. Which is an ugly and dicey subject. Nobody in their right mind would refuse the bounty of a room full of money, like Harry Potter's parents left him. These people can become the layperson's hero, because they have the time, risk-capacity, and privilege to do anything they like without risking food, housing, and health security.

Must be nice, but if the theory is correct, even in a more general form that does not include a trust fund and instead includes bottomless, limitless parental assistance, we still have a problem.

And when I say, "we" have a problem, I mean, those of use without this kind of help. For those without this kind of help, risks can't be taken, shifts in the rental market can become weaponized against our sources of security, and we can get pushed out of our lifetime home spaces.

So few people must have this kind of assistance, but I wonder what it does to rental markets; Are there enough people out there with financial assistance that rent markets could be artificially ballooned in relation to local income potentials?

Whether trust-funders, parental-supporters, or just a different kind of earner, the rental markets in my home area are so screwed up, even as a landlord, I cannot reconcile the disparities. How am I supposed to offer fair and reasonable rents when my personal income is no longer big enough to even rent my own house?

There's an interesting thought: A landlord who leases a property that the landlord can no longer afford to rent. I am that landlord. And it boggles my mind. The housing system appears to be in a state of volatility that isn't sustainable.

"Sustainable" is an interesting word to use in this context. I'm talking about a market where the median income can afford the median house. I'm talking about the median job paying a median income to buy the median house. When we're at the point where rent is higher than jobs are paying, we're talking about a market that is no longer in harmony.

Cats and the End of my Family Lineage

I recently decided that I will not be having kids. That decision might change, but right now, I am solidly convinced that I definitely do not want kids. This decision comes with an interesting consequence: It is the end of my family line. 

When biologists talk about extinction, they're not talking about an individual organism or families. The individual and the family of that organism aren't all that important in the grand scheme of the species. When something goes extinct, it has to be an entire branch of the tree of life.

I think the biologists are wrong. With every branch of their phylogenetic tree (aka. the tree of life), there are tiny capillaries that further refine and blur what that species is. My living family members are one of these imaginary capillaries coming off the human branch of this tree.

My decision to not have kids comes with an interesting consequence. The decision ends my family line, entirely.

None of the kids in my generation are procreating. We have just stopped. I am the one, only, and last male on both my mom and dad's side of the family who might procreate. There are no males on my dad's side in my generation and my one male cousin on the other side isn't interested, either.

I have one cousin who had a kid, but befell harsh judgment for having a kid at the age of 14. Hindsight, was this such a bad decision? She's the only person in the family in my generation to have a kid. Biologically speaking, she's the only successful one in the entire family. The rest of us are terminal points on the tree.

And what a bummer this is. We are all educated, upstanding citizens. And we are going extinct.

The choice of extinction for the family line is an interesting one. My master's degree taught me to plan more tightly, to not take on more than I can handle, and to foresee the future in a more accurate and complete way. And that power of foresight is what has led me directly to the choice to not procreate.

When I adopted my first cat about eight years ago, I was driven to do so by the norms of society and the need to have a pet. I even got a second one to keep him company, which doubled my feelings of hatred for the idea of reproduction. What this little cat, who has turned into a wonderful, but unwelcome friend, has taught me is that I will make a terrible father.

Yeah, a terrible father. Not only do I have two of the best cats I've ever met -- they're smart, energetic, personable, and aren't total assholes. Yet I can't stand them. The chain of having to take care of them, the damage they do to my living space, and the inability to bring anything into my house without it getting fucked up is exactly what has shown me that I shouldn't have kids.

I can't handle the constant maintenance cats bring to my life. Cat hair on everything, nothing remains untouched, and bodily messes are unending. It's not that I don't love puke, shit, and piss. And it's not that I don't love cat hair on everything, having everything knocked on the floor, and being totally excluded from having anything nice. It's really just that I'm not cut out for the commitment. The thought of having to take care of these things for another 10 years makes my skin crawl.

My cats didn't cause my decision, per se. Women were the primary cause. But the cats showed me that I'm not interested in the constant maintenance involved in keeping dependent beings alive. They're more like canaries in the coal mine -- indicators of trouble to come. I can't stand the thought of another ten years of piss, shit, puke, and fur-impregnated-everything, so the thought of the lifetime commitment of children becomes deeply repugnant.

Something went wrong in my family. An entire generation has chosen to not reproduce, which has led to the extinction of our capillary of the family tree. My decision to not have kids comes with an especially odd consequence. The Y-chromosome remains unchanged across generations and is passed from father to father -- I am the last Y-chromosome-carrying individual on both sides of the family -- and I have chosen to not even try to pass it along. Basically an organism in itself, this Y-lineage is now gone.

And it's because of cats. Well, and women. But cats. Cats have taught me that I'm so disinterested in keeping things that require so much maintenance and care that I am willing to just live out my days and not bother with the bullshit of reproduction. How strange. And liberating. I guess I just don't find this consciousness experiment compelling enough to bother helping it to continue. It just isn't worth it.

Debt is a Prison

From the day I was born, I was destined to go into debt. Part of America's middle class, I was born into a mortgaged home, a bank-loaned car, and a household with student debt. The debt system made my American existence possible. As I come of age and graduate from my student  years into what is supposed to be adulthood, I look back and realize that my current state in life was made possible by debt, and that I never had a chance or a choice to escape debt.

Debt has allowed me to buy things I didn't have the money for yet. It has acted as a guarantee that I would remain productive to repay the resources that I received ahead of actually earning them. Debt allowed me to buy an education, a house, and my vehicles. The vehicles were small peanuts and quickly repayable. The house and education, on the other hand, have sealed the fate of my existence.

The concept of debt is pretty novel. Buy something you haven't yet earned the resources to trade for, then continue working to pay it off, bit by bit. Live now, pay later. Pretty trusting, really -- how in the world do we know that the resources will be continually available for the duration of our debts and in the amount of our debts?

Borrowed money makes my skin crawl. And I know exactly why. Growing up, I never had money like many of my peers did. Where I would mow the house lawn for $3, my friends would often mow much smaller lawns for $10 or $20. My sense of money was shaped by this disparity. I had to pinch more pennies to try to keep up with my peers. As a 10 year old, I was an unwitting participant and victim of capitalism (ok, and beneficiary; I also happened to have a roof over my head and food in my belly by the very same system).

When I think of things that bother me and make my entire existence hurt, debt is pretty much number one. Debt is a deal with the devil where you sign away your soul for the following weeks, months, years, or even decades, in exchange for something. This deal, which allows you to live now, chains you to that desk, that cash register, and that office life.

Upon signing the papers or sliding the plastic card, you are now saying that you're pretty darn sure that you will earn x-dollars over x-time period and will be able to pay x-amount back. And to do so, the lender will only charge you a small percentage in the form of interest. How simple? How novel?

Well, that decision is a dangerous one. You can lose a job, you can accidentally procreate, or you can need to buy a car. Or hell, an economic recession could hit, gasoline could go up to $4 per gallon, and you could decide to go to grad school and be simultaneously poor as shit -and- go into debt, simultaneously.

When I was born, I was born into a system where education would cost more than I would be able to save by the time I started taking on student debt, I would need objects to survive in our socioeconomic system that were unreachable without money, and I would be part of a class that cannot afford the roofs over our heads until a lifetime of work was complete to pay back the debt of a home.

The debts we take on have many names: credit card, student loan, mortgage, car loan, and so on. But all of these are the same thing; borrowed money to buy something that we do not yet have the money for. As a person born into the class that has no money, no right to money, and an acculturated need to participate in the American economic machine, I was born into the debt class.

When I turned 18, I had no option to take on student debt or not. Not with living expenses, vehicles, and the ever-present-and-ominous demand to be interesting and fun to entertain the opposite sex. These things are expensive, so debt was essential. College is essential in my caste. And because college is essential, it is both expensive, and a source of debt.

The debt machine that grabs us before we are old enough to make rational economic decisions is troubling. When I took on my student loans, starting at 18 years old, I was taking on a debt that would take ten years to pay off upon graduation. For someone to make such a decision to take on such a burden is interesting; at the age of 18, a ten-year loan duration is over 50% of one's entire lifespan. A ten year debt to an 18 year old is basically an eternity.

Student debt is particularly troubling to me today. It wears like a ball and chain that weighs down time and potential. It is a burden that feels as though it has damaged my entire future, even though I have less than the average student with my level of education. Ten years from now, I will be 42 years old.

The reason for my obsession with debt is that it bothers me, and it was destined to bother me. As a kid who never had money or the money of my peers, I quickly learned the pain of debts -- the damage it can cause, and the pain of working to pay something back that you already have. I also do not do well with imaginary commitments that extend into a future that doesn't exist.

Debt is a novel system, but it is a shackle that dictates what the next x-years of your life will look like. You will work. You will earn a certain amount of money. You will pay this money back. And you will be punished if you do not. Fair enough. But this sounds an awful lot like a sentenced term in prison.

The process of imprisonment and debt are one in the same. In both cases, one makes a decision that involves risk, desire, passion, necessity, or impulse, which results in a consequence that requires a term served to someone else to pay off. The choice to steal that stereo out of that car might provide you with the utility of that new stereo, but you will serve a term in jail, where your punishment is equivalent to repaying society for a debt that you created. When you decide to go to college, because you have to, you basically decide to steal it and serve a term to pay it back.

Of course I can make this argument better. I can beef it up, and not take a single stab at it without edits, but the central point here is that debt is a prison for some of us. And, like any prisoner, some of us will go to extreme lengths to escape our terms and find our freedom again.

Dollars Per Square Inch

I recently discovered that there is an absolute minimum price of a square inch of space in this world. Your existence, no matter how slim, has a cost. And your presence in a place comes at a price. That price has a floor, then a secret basement level. The floor is conventional living and the secret basement is where the crazy people live -- the homeless, van dwellers, and extreme co-habitators.

I once rented a storage unit that someone had been living in. A storage unit. As in, a cement-floored, steel box that people rent to put their meaningless shit in. This person was extreme, because they were doing this in one of the coldest places in the country. They lived without plumbing and likely without heat. If they tried to heat the place, they would have been better off just renting because their fuel costs would have been more than an apartment for about nine months a year.

The financial floor I have discovered is the absolute minimum price of an existence in a place, just shy of homelessness. In this system, homelessness actually relies on stealing that space, rather than being part of the system.

When calculating one's living expenses, everything has to be included. Rent, storage units, utilities, car insurance, car, and gasoline. Utilities are a function of the quality of the dwelling and one's consistency of climate. A vehicle becomes a core living expense if the vehicle is necessary for getting to work every day. Renting a storage unit is just another part of rent; whether you live with your stuff or away from it.

But at the heart of this calculation, the price of a dwelling versus the price of an alternative living situation end up revealing the floor in the cost of living --- the absolute minimum one can pay to live in a place without going into the basement. The basement is the space that shall not be acknowledged or spoken of, and some even work feverishly to eliminate these basement spaces.

My RV experiment has been great -- I love living in the RV for the simplicity and cosiness. But in the city I live in, RV spaces aren't exactly cheap. They're half the price of the cheapest single-bedroom and studio apartments. All of my living expenses combined are less than the cheapest one-bedroom apartment I have found. Though, an RV space is roughly a 400 square foot dirt parking space with basic utility hook-ups.

The space I rent, including the footprint of my vehicles on site is about 600 square feet in total -- which, stupidly, includes my parking spaces. Yet I pay just less than $500 per month. That's just over $2 per square foot for my RV alone and $0.79 per square foot including my parking area and lot space.

Numbers, numbers... I just called storage units in town, so I can move my junk from my free space at Grandma's house to a real storage unit. The absolute cheapest unit in town will be $130 per month for 200 square feet. Well, now I have 400 square feet of interior space for the cost of just over $600 per month. For just $400 more per month, I can be a real boy and live in a real house.

These costs reveal that there is a minimum that one can live, just shy of living in a van on the street without rent and utilities. That cost, in the city I work and live, is about $1.30 per square foot for non-cohabitated spaces, about $1.25 per square foot for cohabitated spaces (having roommates), and $2.37 per square foot for living in crazy-town in an RV.

So, what did I just discover? Sure, my total costs per month are low, but so is my available space and sense of normalcy. My RV, not including the cost of the RV itself, is $2.37 per square foot of finished home space.

This colossally stupid realization has me headed for the crazy basement. Because I don't want and will not afford an apartment in this city. No, Sir. Adding insult to injury, let's look at my living expenses, all-inclusive:

The Financial Backside

$475 Rent
$129 Storage Unit Rent
$70 Utils (average, including water, sewer, trash, electricy, and internet)
$90 Phone
$140 Insurance (for my army of garbage)
$25 Propane (average over year)
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$929 per month for core living expenses
+$350 Student loans
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$1279 per month for core living expenses + student loan payments

Houston, we definitely have a problem. The problem is that my core expenses are out of control. And I am paying less than anyone I know in my living costs where I live. Everybody has a cell phone. Everybody pays about what I do in insurance, except those without cars and renter's insurance. Everybody pays rent.

Should I get a roommate? Should I just stay put and enjoy my below-normal living costs? Should I just enter the realm of utter poverty and rent an apartment near work, sell all of my vehicles, and drop my cell phone plan?

Or should I move into the financial basement and live where no one else will (or can)?

Can I eliminate rent? Can I eliminate utilities? What if I could? And, most terrifyingly, what if I have to?

The numbers tell a story of what has to happen and most won't like the answer. I'm fine with it and looking forward to it. But they spell a change coming. Given this cold reality, I have to sell the RV and eliminate rent. The next phase will be ultimately freeing and will give me the extreme edge I am looking for to achieve my goals. I do not fear what will happen if I do; I fear what will happen if I don't.

The system we live in is completely screwed and I will have no part in maintaining its conventions.

The Educated Poor

There's a new kid on the block. This new kid is "the educated poor." S/he is someone with a higher degree, whether bachelor's or master's level, but makes a smaller income and has student debt. In combination with his/her education, the new kid is only employable in certain geographies and economies because his/her education is only useful in these specific places and economies. Adding to the mix, the specific habitats that the educated poor inhabit are so expensive that even good wages are quickly consumed to leave the person with little to nothing.

The cryptic intro aside, there is a new phenomenon that I am paying close attention to, which is the rise of the college-educated and the fall of wages and achieving success. The so-called Millennial Generation appears to be flopping around like a bunch of beached sardines, with no ability to save or achieve secure housing. And I think I know why.

I now live in the 39th most expensive city on Planet Earth to live. The city of about 160,000 people now rents a 1-bedroom apartment for around $1,100 per month. If we follow the financial breadcrumb trail of what that means, the picture isn't pretty for even the most educated, who are just starting off and are "independent"  (non-trust-funded, non-parentally-supported, and paying their own bills with money earned on their clock).

Following financial literacy standards, base rent or mortgage should never exceed 30% of one's income. To live a more comfortable existence, rent should never exceed 25%. Given $1,100 per month base rent costs, a person's net (post-tax) income needs to be around $3,300 per month, or $39,000 per year. If we count an approximately 20% payroll deduction for tax and medical benefits, this person needs to make $50,000 per year.

$50,000 per year is easy for some. Engineers, doctors, architects, and business professionals find these wages pretty easily. If you're a nurse, a teacher, or some kind of general professional, wages are almost never this high until years into a career. Given these ballpark wages, there is another problem brewing in the numbers above.

In a town where a dumpy 1-bedroom apartment away from city amenities is now $1,100 per month, a $50,000 per year income is needed. Given the rising rarity of $50,000 per year incomes for anyone but those in the more specialized and in-demand disciplines, yet the rise in $1,100 per month apartments, we now have a situation where even educated professionals cannot afford quality, personal, or non-cohabitated spaces to live in.

If the above isn't believable or not understandable, let's break down the finances of a person making, say, $32,000 per year (the average wage of a college graduate after school).

Snapshot of an Annual Salary
+ $32,000  -  Gross Income
- $5,440  -  17% income tax/payroll deduction
- $960  -  3% medical benefit cost
- $13,200  -  $1,100/mo rent cost
- $1,200  -  $100/mo utility costs (water, sewer, trash, electricity, and heating/cooling)
- $1,200  -  $100/mo insurance costs (renters and car insurance)
- $1,680  -  $140/mo communication cost (cell phone + internet only)
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$8,320 for vehicle, food, fun, and recreation leftover = $690 per month leftover for everything else

"$690?! That's plenty!!!" you say? Subtract a payment on a used car. Then subtract gasoline. Then subtract the occasional annual repairs needed on a car. THEN... subtract a student loan payment.

The average college student is leaving school with around $50,000 in debt. We asked colleges to start behaving more like businesses and they obliged. This amount leads to a $420 per month payment every month for ten years.

So, let's take that $690 luxury money leftover and get a more realistic look.

Accounting for the Real Expenses
+ $690 per month leftover after core expenses
- $420 per month for a $50,000 student loan payment
- $250 per month for a car payment on a used car
- $120 per month for gasoline (1,000 miles @ 25 MPG and $3/gallon)
- $200 per month for food (assuming $6.66 per day for all meals)
------------------------------------------
 -$300 per month... uh.... in debt.

So, Houston... we have a problem. On a $32,000 per year gross income, in a town where a 600 square foot, junk-ass one-bedroom apartment is $1,100 per month, the person making $32,000 per year is now $300 per month (plus or minus) over-budget. They are not making enough to save money, go out, or really... even have what they think they have. This person's finances do not allow for the purchase of new clothes, vehicle repairs, recreation, or fun -- it's all work and a highly-disciplined core existence.

The answer could be that these people in these places can no longer afford a car. It may mean they need to change their phone over to a pay-as-you-go plan. Or maybe all of the above. Even when we cut out the $250 per month car payment, the cost of gasoline, and the $90 per month smart-phone plan, the person making $32,000 per year is still only left with $720 per month after student loans are deducted.

Are we really to a point where we expect college graduates to not own cars, have the luxuries that are almost a necessity in today's world for connectivity for professional and personal lives, and to live on $200 per month for food? Are we really at a place where the college graduate of my generation can't make enough money to save for a house, or move out of co-habitation with peers? Are we really living in an economy where our most educated are now living entirely in-debt for a lifestyle that was once considered the poster-child of a mediocre and failed existence?

The numbers here can be adjusted to look better. I do all of my own car maintenance, so don't endure many unnecessary expenses. I live in an RV for less than half the price of a 1-bedroom apartment. I live on an oatmeal, bran, beans, and potatoes diet. I rarely buy alcohol and don't go on dates.

Given that I have cut out meat, women, and all of the other expensive domestic luxuries that are unnecessary, I live pretty well in this environment. But by most people's definition, I also live in a third-world country; I live in a vehicle.

The educated poor is part of my idea of "The Education Bubble." We are entering a new economic system where the non-educated are even poorer because the educated are now the poor. At the point where a college graduate, exempting the valued disciplines, cannot afford to own a car or live on their own, is a bad place to be. It is no longer true that if you get a good education, you get a good job. It now appears that you have to get a good education... just to survive.

Extreme Budgeting

I am coining a new form of financial thought: "Extreme Budgeting." For many years, I have made models of my finances to guide my financial decisions. My models have told me how much things will cost in the long-term, how much money I will have at the end of each month, and what my debt:income ratios are. I am now trying to change my financial position rapidly with minimal income. And the scene isn't pretty.

I'm finally making more per hour than I was before grad school. That's a huge feat, but there are two significant problems. First, my net salary is tiny after taxes and insurance are deducted. And, second, I now have more debt than I have ever had thanks to the terrible decision to go to grad school.

The predicament I am in is this: In my current situation, I can only save about $1,800 per year after taxes, rent, utilities, insurance, food, debt payments, and such. If I get rid of my trusty old Nissan Sentra, I will only be able to save $700 per year. The thought of shedding a car and losing money is almost preposterous, but the car is so fuel efficient and reliable, it's a fundamental truth.

I don't know about everybody else, but it's pretty pitiful when someone with such a high hourly wage can only save $700 per year. Thanks to student loans from almost a decade's worth of classes and degrees, that's my reality. What it means is that, in my current location, if I wasn't living in an RV, I would not actually be able to afford a single-bedroom apartment.

Enter "Extreme Budgeting." My parent's generation won't understand this. Most don't understand the predicament that my generation is in. My generation can't save money, we can't get jobs that pay well enough to own homes, and education no longer means what it used to on the job market. Sure, there are engineers, computer programmers, and other highly-valued vocations that are doing well. But I'm not an engineer -- I'm an idiot that studied things that are worthless.

Given that I'm an idiot, but a tough idiot, I am going to have to find a way around this predicament. And I have to do it with skills I have that set me apart from others. The economy we live in is built very similarly to the natural world; Those who can find a niche and exploit it win.

My niche is the ability to live very minimally in very harsh conditions. And the difference it could make in my finances is almost too fantastic to be real.

In my financial model, I accounted for all the core living expenses; rent, utilities, phone, etc. But I also accounted for gasoline consumption, groceries, and fun money. On a yearly basis, given all of my expenses, including student loans and a storage unit, I will... never... be able to buy a house. Or even rent an apartment in the city I work in.

My answer is to eliminate everything I possibly can from my budget, including rent. As soon as my student loans start coming due, I will have so little money each month, I will not even be able to afford doctor visits.

The next item I want to eliminate from my finances includes the following: Rent and utilities. Hold onto your butts.

The way I plan to do this is to move into my truck. Full time. And it's the only way. I have the numbers in front of me. There is no other way to get ahead. Without a miraculous promotion, my financial progress is frozen and my freedom completely garnished. I am the only person I have ever met who can pull this off and pull it off well.

The RV will be sold. The car sent to the scrap yard. And the truck improved. I am ready for it and it is the only way to achieve my goals. Patience? Yeah. Because at 32 with a dual-masters degree and 10 years of professional experience, I should be patient to the tune of being able to save $700 per year. Nope. Sorry. No thanks. Life is too expensive. The rent is too damn high. And there are too many mouths to feed.

The difference in the model shows that I can save $1,700 per year by keeping the car up and running. Or I can save $8,300 per year by living in the truck. How is that even possible? Here's the equation:

Savings = (Income - (Rent + Utilities + Phone + Insurance + Student Loans + Food + Gas + Fun))*12

It's a painful equation because it accounts for everything (except car repairs). And when I add the approximately $7,500 I will retrieve from the sale of the RV, I can either have $9,200 or $15,800 in the bank by the end of the year.

My only goal is to buy another property by February. Selling the RV and living in my truck is the only way to that goal. Welcome to a new era of extreme budgeting. Only the extreme will survive.

The World Is My Oyster

The world was looking pretty odd there for a while. It turns out that going to grad school is pretty awesome fun, but it comes with some uncertainty and costs afterward. The 11 months following grad school were irritating, uncertain, and anxiety-inducing. I was only able to find jobs that paid almost half of what I made before grad school. Considering the prior two years were some of the most fun, fulfilling, and engaging of my life, it is difficult to be critical of my decision to attend grad school. But right now, everything is finally looking great.

Even though I would rather be on the road with enough money in the bank to travel for a year or two, the job I ended up landing and the security I am now inline for feels like a worthy substitute. The unpopularity of my backup plan to finding a good job stalled and destroyed my potential to go see the world and find the intellectual space to develop my own path.

The chance of eventual failure of said plan was higher than I would like to admit, but the chances for success were also quite high. I needed to either find a job or find the space to carve my own path entirely.

Since I was robbed of carving my own path and creating that space for myself, I am now stuck with what I have been given: An amazing job with great pay, smack-dab in my field, with incredible potential for growth. Not bad a bad place to be, considering this is exactly where I hoped not to be.

My desire for something else came from my realization that the working world is a shit show. It’s a donkey punch to the gut. It’s a system of raping and pillaging the mind, body, and soul. I had a unique window to experience something else for a while, to see new things, and to live life a little differently. And while I blew it, there is still a chance that I will still make that opportunity for myself.

The place I am now looks safe, intentional, and successful. And it is. For a while there, I was worried that grad school actually decreased my market value. And by certain viewpoints, it has. But my per hour value, after 11 months of fighting vigorously to not lose ground, has gone up. I finally found a job that actually pays more than before grad school, and the job is great.

The thing that those around me who bit, scratched, fought, and drug me down to prevent me from doing as an alternative don’t realize is that they paved the way for an absolutely wicked midlife crisis. I can feel and predict it. As odd as it sounds, I never really had a teenaged and 20-something youth, like many of my fellow Millennial’s have been privileged to. I have little snippets and moments, but never prolonged periods of safe, unadulterated youth. I have always been worried about bills, responsibilities, and following that straight and narrow pathway to conventional success.

So, while I am in a safe place and have found that success that I had before, I have instead endangered my future and my desire to domesticate. While I am satisfied for the moment, successful, and have found that winning job again, I can already feel the steel of the shackles wearing into my skin, once again. And for a still-kind-of-young male, in a world where men are more shamed, more directionless, and more anxious than in any prior generation, that is a very dangerous seed to plant.

I predict that the stunting of my path to finding new and different spaces will backfire in the future. I was already unsure if kids were going to be in my future, if the domestic life was at all for me, but now that I am trapped behind a desk and the crushing weight of domestic debts and conventions, I am afraid I may perpetually long for freedom from the prison I have been put in. Or at least seek evidence that there is something else out there. Since I am not here voluntarily, no matter how good it is, I may never be able to buy in. On the surface I will be satisfied and successful, but in the depths of my psyche, I will be constantly planning and plotting my exit from the prison of domesticity, stationarity, and conventionality that I have been stuffed and chained into.

The world is my oyster, once again.