and Work

It was Freud, someone who is rarely quoted these days, and with good reason -- mainly because he was a bit of an egotist and a pervert -- who said that the definition of a healthy person is one who can work and love. I agree with him on that.

I have spent many posts on this blog giving examples of how people seem to screw up their lives looking for love in all the wrong places, but recently I have noticed a strong trend in my practice of how the stress of work is shattering people's lives.

Today I was sitting with Jake, who is twenty-eight. He is a good looking former basketball player for a small school. He is from a family of divorced parents who both worked hard and still love him, but they couldn't pay for all of the ridiculous costs of higher education and so he has several thousand dollars in loans to repay. He has been living with Shelia for over a year and she wants to get married.

He is very uncertain about marrying her at this time. One reason is that their sex life has greatly diminished. She says that is happening because she hardly sees him, and when she does finally see him all wants to do is grab her, and she doesn't want to be treated that way.

Jake says he understands how she feels. But he doesn't see her because he is working fifty or even sixty hours a week. He feels he has to do that if he wants to keep his job, and that he has to keep his job if he wants to get married. What worries him the most is that even when he works fifty-five hours a week and then pays rent, his car loan, car insurance, student loan, cell-phone bill, internet bill, laundry, one pizza, and five cups of coffee he is already $200 short. He would like to take Shelia out for dinner, but he doesn't have the time or the money.

Shelia only works forty to fifty hours a week. She doesn't make as much as Jake, and she is looking to him to make it all happen, while still paying attention to her, and then get married, buy a house and have a baby. Shelia says that and then goes to get her nails done, puts it on the charge card and owes $8000.

Both Jake and Shelia feel they have been sold an empty box called the American Dream. They feel they are doing their part, but getting screwed for it. Shelia has already had the experience of getting laid-off from a job with a big company. That company doesn't exist any more because it was bought by a bigger company for $8.7 billion. Many people got rich on that deal. Shelia doesn't know any of them. She and the twenty people in her department got laid off.

The stress is a lot for those kids. They are in a stage of their live that should be pretty care-free and a lot of fun, but all they can think about is money, and how they don't have it.

I saw Jake at noon. He came over on his lunch break and had to get back to work before anyone missed him. Usually he has lunch at sales meetings. At one o'clock I saw Bill, who is fifty-two and more frightened than Jake. I'll tell you about him next time.