Scoreboards

I've written before about the onset of depression that financial burden brings, and its an obvious in this world.

In a society based around a financial competitive economy, the strongest survive and the weakest live off the taxation scraps.  Some days I wish I were the one living off those scraps.

Working 7 days being an 100k pluser feels like hard work.  But what if thats wasted energy with too much friction and backforce to gain any positive momentum forward?

I'm an avid football fan, college and NFL, as many are, so I cant say I'm much different from any college graduated middle class male, but in seeing the sport, there is a lot of "hard work" put into getting to those levels, whether it be the player or the coaching and support staff.  But that hard work appears to pay off.

But what is the distinction?

On HBO's series Hard Knocks, theyre currently covering the Texans, and more so the NFL celebrity that is JJ Watt.  He appears to put more hard work in than anybody.  It appears hes working hard after practice, hes very disciplined, speaking of a 10 hour sleep schedule, whcih according to him rejuvenates the body and allows for more physical and mental awareness.  I cant imagine the sacrifice that takes, trying to live on a 14 hour day.  I wouldnt have a kid, ill tell you that.

But the fact remains, I do, and I am trying to support and start and raise a family, with good values, and trying to center life around that, when the definition of hard work is sacrifice, or at least a large component.

So I sacrifice a lot of my time to work, work inefficiently apparently as my hard work only drives me backward.

Where does a 100k pluser attempt to break the mold and beat the overwhelming financial odds?

Well, I cant say i have that answer but I can send out the siren song, which in the end appears to be me only bitching and maybe fruitless for any other struggling 100k pluser.

Just there I realized that this sole bitching wasnt going to help.

Perhaps a support group.

I know noone with 100k plus in student debt.  At least noone as vocal in complaining about it.

Twos sites i quickly found were Student Loan Sherpa and Ready for Zero.

Both appear to have started as blogs and gained momentum, which i quote have not.

But more research is always needed.

The support group sounds like a good idea, but how does something like that start, where do you meet, will there be truth or just unwanted nonsense, is it possible?

Maybe a possible ad pitch for a blog and then a proposal.  Or maybe just do it, paper, online, where?

These are spit ball ideas in a blog entry that was meant to define myself as a lifetime loser, as a failure.

But these ideas could make us all get something we desperately need, hope.

Hope for zero, hope to not call ourselves 100k plusers.

I dont know the severity of this problem, I know I lay at the bottom but I know I can't be the only one.

This is my plea to myself for a true siren song and the courage to sing it.

A word of warning

As much as my blog entries are too subjective, this one just might take the cake for subjectivity.

I'm about to get all touchy feely right here.

100k plus is a very economic state, one this country has cultivated and grown.  Lawyers, doctors, PhD's.

But that has bleed into the normal spectrum of society.

My hope and dreams of being an accountant; at 18 it was hopes and dreams of being an accountant to the stars.  The end state I believed I may have been capable of was all but out of the question when 2 crushing realities were realized.

The first being the realization of what 100k plus means for the regular layman.  Of which I will elaborate on,  and the other being that I'm stuck in this place, for good and bad.

This is home.  Pittsburgh.

An average in the city of average.

They call it the City of Champions, but its more the city of the middle class and more so lower class.  I guess that all American society as the income gap grows to a much greater extent than the American dream was outlined to be.

So back to my touchy feely story.

The feeling of being so debt ridden almost outweighs the feeling of being poor.  See the poor are free to live as their income allows, with assistance from social systems if them utilize them to their fullest extent or even at all, while debt just sits there, crushing hopes and hard work and totally devolving any future reality of having an American dream.

The Life Equation seems to be squashed by the American Dream.  In a sense of where I head in my writing, more so my rambling, it is a positive step towards a more universally marketed product.  In the path to my eventually happiness or content state of being, its a crushing blow, but one that was realized during the accumulation of that 100k plus.

See, as I make the average wage, actually my dreams, more so goals, before 30 goals to be exact were meager.

Make 50k. Modest current economic state goals in a rising middle class worker world.

I, at 31, lay just under that so just behind that meager, considering a family to support, goal.

How can I complain about that?

Well, first off (well more first off, as evidenced by this blog, I'm a complainer), the only goal that was accomplished was solving the Rubix Cube, a goal I've backslid on and cannot longer complete.

I kid, and I digress.

I found a wife, a house, and a masters.

All good things, but not all easy things.

And most certainly not without a constant looming 100k plus with a 50k minus job.

And the constant realization of the death of ones dream, the seath of the American dream, and sure fire failure.

Hey, its depressing, but its 100k plus life.

More options

So, my last post about trying to find other options was a success.

I got a job, I got away, I 'moved on'....to the department right next to mine.

I got the new job, as was apparent from the last sentence fragments, but where does that leave me?

Where does that leave any of us?

You get to a 'goal' (of sorts) and where do you go next?

When the goal is money, there is never an endstate, and in my case, I didnt get any more of that with this move so i essentially have the same issues, plus more issues I am not yet aware of since with moving comes change.

At least constant shit, is constant.

Change is constant, but the consistency of change is not constant.

But back to money.

There has to be a better goal or you will never reach that goal.  Those are words to live and die by.

I've,  along with many other 100ker or the less of us, have, but its not until one chases love that contentness is found.

Its been said and its certainly overused and cliche, but thats because its true.

You MUST love what you do.

Or you will fail, continually, without change.

There must be an element of love in your work that keeps you striving for any work to be successful or its all for not, and for the most part, unproductive.

A paycheck is a good thing.  A paycheck isnt a bad thing.

But it isnt the only thing.

I can't imagine the percentage of those who love, or love aspects even, of their work to those who do not, but that percentage is one I must research because its pertinent to the life equation,  and must be very low.

And one would assume if you are to spend 100k plus, and going, on an education that there must be some love.

But education is difficult, not because learning is difficult, but because its never ending and attempting to learn one area in a matter of several years is not possible, but it is possible to determine an estimation of the level of love for a job.  But thats an expensive experiment.

Specializing is the society we now live in, so to think a general formal education, no matter how specific, can lead to endless opportunities or, more so, avenues.  Obviously it is up to any individual, whether weighed down by 100k plus debts or not, which is with no exception, emotionally draining at times, to determine to what extent they utilize that opportunity.

Just like 'love winning', Love must win over Money.

Book Title

Its becoming more apparent to me that this is the forum to attempt to launch a book, whether read or words in a forest that fall and no one hears.

Nonetheless writing can take place with pen and paper and be much faster or typing can take place and be a little less faster but more concrete, at least more visible.

Im not sure visibility is the most important factor, but importance is the most important factor. Importance, and relevance.  Where can I as an opinionated and educationally desired individual add any value to educate others through my self education and experience.

Thus, I blog.

Blogging, and talking, and notching about debt is one thing; the question here lies what can I add to the conversation,  especially that I could include in my dream, of a book and of financial freedom, as they, the proverbial they, deem it.  But a debt adverse lifestyle would be ideal. 

One can either divest and throw away future potential or the lucky ones can invest in a future that provides that which they are working for, whether that be fulfillment, happiness, other's happiness,  but not for yesterday and yesterdays problems and financial burdens.  But that is the system banking and financial instruments have allowed.  One where the few with available financial freedoms allow the many with many financial obligations and lack of finances to secure debts so aggregious that their lives are owed to that debt.

I talk in philosophies but they are truths that many live with and any sense of worth outside of our earthly existence is diminished by our earthly existence.  Living contradictions for the life not lived.

Still we must look past finances, even 100k plus finances, and live to fight and educate and evolve another day.  So that future generations are burdened by the things worth burdening over, our reason for existence, our search for knowledge, our search for meaning, our search for other intangibles that finances could never bring.

Again, way too existential.

But when you're 100k plus that's where the mind goes, to philosophical reasoning as to the necessity of the 100k plus.

I hope none of this on anybody and am slowly, very dramatically slowly, to know that no one else will be in this position ever, whether that's just through meaningless words on a meaningless space of the internet, or hopeful action in the world I reside in.