There Are A Million

There are a million people who fit the following description:

1) $0 saved for retirement
2) Can't live on social security
3) Work a job that is destroying them physically and mentally
4) Can't find a new job because they are too old
5) Can't quit - got a mortgage to pay

I have read accounts in influential magazines indicating that these people feel trapped.

Remember mimes? Remember how they pretend they are in a box by pressing the palms of their hands against imaginary walls?

I'm told that's how these people feel.

Only the walls are not imaginary.

Worse than that, studies show they feel so trapped, so hemmed in that their internal organs are getting crushed.

Slowly and painfully.

Some have been duped by a supposed confidante at work. A higher up who led them to believe there was some tiny glimmer of hope and justice. Only to have that exposed as fiction. A carefully crafted lie.

Trust took another hit.

There was a time when 60 was a glorious age. Work was coming to an end; retirement could be seen lurking right around the corner. The house was paid for, magnificent trips were planned, leisure would transform from a concept to a reality.

Not so in the 21st century.

No retirement, a perpetual mortgage, underemployment; the word "leisure" deleted from Merriam-Webster.

It is a sad time for humanity.

There are solutions. This generation is resourceful.

There is alcohol. There are drugs.

There are life choices available.

One could chuck it all and begin a rolling tour of bars and whorehouses throughout America as long as money and health will allow.

One could chug away at traditional solutions, applying for jobs, groveling at the feet of headhunters and interviewers, praying to Jesus and washing behind the ears.

One could reinvent oneself. Find a way to make money online, although this sounds an awful lot like the dream of "high paying" computer jobs that was dangled as hope decades ago.

The point is to not give up. Giving up hurts the economy. Even option one above is not giving up; at least you are spending money, contributing to local economies.

There are millions of people faced with this reality.

The important thing is to put your head down and repeat the mantra "this is how life works."

Grim acceptance greases the skids towards compliance.