The Happy Fantasy

A common mantra that I’ve heard from my left-leaning friends is that a) everyone should be able to earn a “decent” living doing whatever they enjoy and b) that everyone deserves to have a “decent” car, house, clothes, vacation, etc.  Blame touchy-feely high school guidance counselors for the first fallacy, which has directly led to the disillusioned masses of psychology, fine arts and literature majors populating the Occupy Wall Street movement.

The hard facts of life are that not everyone can do what they enjoy most for a living.  Otherwise there would be far more rappers, football players and fly fishermen than we would know what to do with.  Meanwhile, sewers would go uninspected, crime scenes would go uncleaned and garbage would collect by curbside.  Seriously.  If it weren’t for an appealing paycheck (or a lack of other opportunities), who would wake up in the morning and say “Gee, I really want to muck through people’s feces today”?  Similarly, jobs that are stepping stones to bigger and better things would also be avoided entirely.  Intern?  Nope, I want to be CEO.  Apprentice?  Just let me rig that wiring.  Draftsman?  I’m ready to build skyscrapers.  If you enjoy your work, consider it a bonus.  Otherwise, many of us go to work each day at a job we don’t mind doing (too much) so that we can do the things we enjoy (such as fly fishing).

The second fallacy lies in the varying standards of what constitutes “decent.”  If you ask ten people to describe a decent car, you’re bound to get twelve answers.  And there are folks who are willing to trade a less than decent car in exchange for, say, vacationing in France every year.  As any marketing major will tell you, tastes vary widely across the spectrum, because value (like beauty) is truly in the eye of the beholder.  Systems that try to meet everyone’s needs with a one-size-fits-all approach generally do it badly, leaving no one satisfied.  As the saying goes Comrade, it comes in two sizes: too big or too small.

The endless summer, where everyone lives in a mansion and gets paid to surf and look good, exists only in imaginations and fantasies.