Today I'm thinking about family, careers, and Christmas, and how they're all very intertwined. As Christmas is approaching I'm realizing how difficult we can make this time of year on ourselves. Christmas has always been one of my favorite times because I'm very much a person who loves spending good quality time with those closest to me. However, Christmas (or our commercialized, Americanized version of it) seems to cast a glaring light on the differences between the haves and have-nots like no other occasion.
Why does Christmas make us miss what we don't have so acutely? It doesn't seem to matter what we do have (which is probably a lot if you're wealthy enough to have an internet connection), we still long for more. Whether you're single and want to be married, or married and want a baby, or you don't have enough to buy your kids everything they want for Christmas, or your job stinks and it's hard to socialize at "Holiday" parties with the people who make your life miserable - those are situations we were probably in before and will still be in come January, but the pangs seem to hit closer to the heart in December.
And what about our ideas of charity? Is giving toys to poor people at Christmas a good thing? Or are we just perpetrating the commercialization of the birth of Christ? Are we just accentuating the chasm between those with and those without? And is not having a lot of money really a bad thing?
And Christmas seems to make us nostalgic. Was the past really better than the present? Will the future be any better than the past?
I have more questions than answers.
As I get older, I keep coming up with more and more questions, but the answers don't seem to come at an equal pace. So it seems I actually understand less and less. Man, when I was five I had it all figured out. Actually, when I was 18 I had most of it figured out. Even at 24 I was still in pretty good shape. Now, two years past 30 I'm feeling the weight of all those unanswered questions.
Maybe that's why old people stoop over...
Why does Christmas make us miss what we don't have so acutely? It doesn't seem to matter what we do have (which is probably a lot if you're wealthy enough to have an internet connection), we still long for more. Whether you're single and want to be married, or married and want a baby, or you don't have enough to buy your kids everything they want for Christmas, or your job stinks and it's hard to socialize at "Holiday" parties with the people who make your life miserable - those are situations we were probably in before and will still be in come January, but the pangs seem to hit closer to the heart in December.
And what about our ideas of charity? Is giving toys to poor people at Christmas a good thing? Or are we just perpetrating the commercialization of the birth of Christ? Are we just accentuating the chasm between those with and those without? And is not having a lot of money really a bad thing?
And Christmas seems to make us nostalgic. Was the past really better than the present? Will the future be any better than the past?
I have more questions than answers.
As I get older, I keep coming up with more and more questions, but the answers don't seem to come at an equal pace. So it seems I actually understand less and less. Man, when I was five I had it all figured out. Actually, when I was 18 I had most of it figured out. Even at 24 I was still in pretty good shape. Now, two years past 30 I'm feeling the weight of all those unanswered questions.
Maybe that's why old people stoop over...
1 comment:
All really interesting points Jeff. There are definitely a lot of questions out there and very few answers. I tend to look fondly back on portions of my past because they were good and certain...as in, they are complete, they are good pieces of my history. Even the rough times I can look back on fondly because I can see the good that was produced. As I look to the future it is the uncertainty of it all that keeps me up at night.
Rex
P.S. I stoop because cast-iron tubs are freakin' heavy.
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