“2 BUY OR NOT TO BUY”/

The cry of my generation so it seems.
This was verified by the research findings of my agency as they profiled college graduates aged 20-24. As they went through the presentation, I was more and more disturbed.

It seems like my generation wants the easy moneyed way out. This is proven by how so many graduates get into call centers. Not to disregard the 65,000 call center employees, but it’s a dead-end job. You put on a fake accent to service 1st world countries that are too cheap to pay their own people to service them. Call center operators undoubtedly make a lot of dough- certainly more that the average fresh- grad copywriter. A lot of fresh graduates choose to be operators because they just can’t (or won’t) start at the bottom. It pays way too little and it’s hard to get up. In other words, it’s money over a career.

People give up or put aside their dreams and passions to slave away in a concrete hell. And it’s not their fault. Everywhere we turn, we see how money can buy happiness. Take the popular show, “The Apprentice”, its opening sequence asks, “What if you could have it all?” followed by a voice that sings out, “Money, money, money… money!” Damn the Donald Trumps of the world who advocate the notion that by amassing huge amounts of money, we can live the life we’ve always dreamed off. What’s wrong with living smaller then life… or the simple life? Sure, you’re not Paris Hilton… but at least people don’t make a mockery of your every move. They don’t keep replaying your wasted naked self, with a dick inside of you.

Unless of course… that is what you really want.

It’s all too depressing because we live in a culture of comfort- of conformism and worse... comparison. Individual choices are influenced by the Joneses. This is a generation of followers, not of free thinkers. One hot person wants to go to Boracay… next think you know everyone is going to Boracay. They say Embassy is in … and we say, “Ano P500 lang?”. If you can’t keep up, then get out because we don’t want to share in your miserable uncool existence.

The most disturbing realization of it all is that… I myself am a subscriber to all this crap. I don’t dream of being Paris Hilton, but I have to admit that I stress about making money on a regular basis. Even though I know that I am making enough, it bothers me that friends are making even more. It bothers me when people go to places I’ve never been to. It bothers me that people are dressed in designer clothes that I can’t afford. It’s sad to know that my generation is a moving mass of soft, uncommitted individuals easily influenced by the forces around the. And it sucks that I’m part of it.

This was something I wrote way back on April 22.
Found it a bit funny that I mentioned Boracay.