This morning at 11:30am I wandered down to the dining hall at Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State University. Was I heading to breakfast? Lunch? It didn’t matter; the dining hall was open. I scanned my card robotically and headed for my favorite station: home-cooked meals. It was closed. I was surprised at first, but then remembered that full service didn’t open until 4:30pm. So I ambled over to the grill and grabbed a Reuben, forgetting I didn’t actually like them that much. After taking one bite, I immediately realized I couldn’t stomach any more, and went back into the cafeteria for something else. For some reason, none of the stations seemed to be offering anything I particularly liked. I selected a few mismatched items that didn’t exactly constitute a meal. I was disappointed, but decided there was nothing I could do.
Here in America, we think we have it good. We don’t have it good enough. In reality, we have so many things wrong with our lives. The things that are supposed to make our daily routines run smoothly rarely seem to work correctly. We don’t recognize that we are being cheated out of the most high-quality experience we could be having. We deserve to have every aspect of our lives work out perfectly. When things go wrong, we ought to complain more!
How many problems could there be with our lives? The list is, in fact, lengthy. Our $1000 Macintosh laptops sometimes crash or can’t find an internet connection, our phones don’t receive texts reliably, the cooks in our dorm cafeterias give us the wrong portions and sometimes don’t even cook things we like, our professors assign us essays and workbooks, our cars run out of gas too quickly. Computers, cells, cafeterias, classes, and cars are parts of our lives for one purpose: convenience. Each of them should make it easier for us to advance in life, right? What business do they have malfunctioning?
For instance: classes. Students are taking courses at universities in order to get degrees in order to get higher paying jobs in order to live the American Dream. Classes should, therefore, be designed to make it easy for students to get passing grades. Tests? Essays? Out of class assignments? Reading? Workbooks? Projects? These activities make it strenuous for students to to ace their courses and quickly pass on to six figure salaries. Since we live in America, it is natural for our education to be handed to us with no trouble on our part. If a professor assigns students any sort of time-consuming project, the students should speak out against it! And yet, we never say an ill word. We’re too complacent.
Despite all of the difficulties we face as Americans, trying to handle our laptops and phones and cars and education, we maintain such good attitudes. But enough is enough. I propose that we stop wasting time and energy helping people in Haiti, and people with cancer; stop feeling sorry for others and start focusing more on ourselves, and how our costly trinkets and gadgets somehow don’t make our lives perfect enough.