Miranda, I’m not sure this si something that it has become - I think it has always been that way, to some degree. Before it was just accepted (children working etc.), while now, the mass media culture makes it clear that it’s a deficit.

Exactly. It’s a Calvinist sort of reward, fun for its health benefits rather than fun for the sake of pleasure. And the plebes are being castigated for failing to make time for fun just as they are being castigated for failing to make time for exercise, sleep, quality childcare time, and balanced homemade meals. Lazy neglectful lardassed sugarveined wet blankets, all of them.

If you are too tired to do more than shuffle groggily through your day, you are probably sick. YOu probably have a bacterial infection of some kind (sinusitis, bronchitis, cervicitis) and you need to go to the doctor. NOT going can make bacterial infection chronic (your body stops fighting it) and that is a very bad outcome. GOING to the doctor and getting some antibiotics, and taking them ALL can lift you back into sanity.

It is ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE when you are truly money-poor to justify going to the doctor, (especially when you are relatively young and strong) but if you are that tired, do it. We are told by our economic overlords to just take some over the counter crap and keep pushing our exhausted bodies so we can make more $ for the Man….and we internalize it. We buy this shit. I can’t believe I bought it for as long as I did.

Oh, and I vote for universal health insurance! Where do I cast my vote? (looks around)

(seriously though, I already voted (early Texas Voting) and I voted FOR those who are more LIKELY to let us have health insurance SOMEDAY)

I feel like I am literally checking off days that we haven’t gotten into accidents or needed medical care–you know like those posters they have in work places “20 days without an accident.” I feel like I am thumbing my nose at fate and that we are bound to have something happen “just because.”

I too had to have dental work, a root canal and also a crown to cover it. The estimates for the work were upwards of $1500. I went home and cried. Luckily, my endodontist discounted my procedure and that helped. I still owe him the money, the procedure was done a couple months ago. Another thing hanging over my head.

As for fun. Thank goodness for the internet. I would be completely socially disconnected if I didn’t have it. In order to get out of the house, I have to pay a sitter and whatever i’m doing has to meet the is-it-worth-the-babysitting-money criteria. And then of course you generally need money to do something with while you are out. Even a simple night out can equate to a week or two of groceries. So I stay home a lot.

Sometimes I feel like an observer in life. I know people my age and educational background are having nice dinners at fancy restaurants and watching theater and hanging out at trendy nightclubs and going to great concerts, while wearing great clothes and driving properly insured cars. I would like to say that just spending time with my children smelling the roses of life was enough for me (and it is a wonderful thing, don’t get me wrong) but dang, everynow and then it would be nice to have to use what little extra money I have to pay for something fun for myself instead of for unreimbursed medical expenses.

This was a good post. :) Thanks.

Part of what allows you to deal with the here and now is having something to work toward. That’s not an absurdity. Per Joseph Addison, “The great essentials for happiness in this life are something to do, something to love and something to hope for.”

If the point is “What do I do with my ‘now’ to make it better?”, then that’s a different question. I answered a sliver of that, if you’ll read above, with the closest dental school options in Lauren’s area. I don’t like going too far into that for someone else, though, because that’s a more personal “How do I get by financially, day to day?” issue, and you don’t tell people how to pay their rent unless they want to discuss that issue, which I didn’t see in Lauren’s commentary. (That said, if Lauren ever asks for financial help to move on to the next stage in her life, or to cover needed dental work, I’d toss into the kitty in a heartbeat. I’ve done so for other friends, and in fact have a relatively new roommate at the moment because she had to choose between paying for removing a cancerous mass in her intenstines or paying the rent.)

What I hear, instead, in part, is “LIfe sucks for me, and I hate people telling me what consititues having a good life/good time while having no idea of what I deal with on a regular basis.”

I know that life can be incredibly hard for some of us. What defines you, I’ve always thought, is how you react when the worst happens in your life. I’ve seen my wife become severely mentally ill, then refuse her meds consistently once she was stabilized. I was forced to accept a divorce, fought for my then under-two-year-old’s majority custody for over five years when my ex, through negilgence caused by still refusing to take her meds, put her at risk, all the while fighting her parents who couldn’t (and still don’t) accept her illness, transforming their guilt and frustration into rage at me, that I somehow caused this to happen. (Oh, and God told them personally that it was all my fault. That I maintianed my faith in the midst of that bunch of nasty was a small miracle.)

There were some very long days when I didn’t do much, didn’t care, didn’t know how I was going to get through, felt pissed off at those who continued to have what at least seemed to be happier, more fulfilling lives. Spent, muddled, hanging on, frustrated.

But part of what got me through was figuring out what I could do, and what I couldn’t. What I was now responsible for, and what I wasn’t. That which I could change, that which I could improve, I did my best to make so. That which I couldn’t, I had to let go of. And what I could affect, I figured out how to deal with.

And while life isn’t by any means perfect, I make a living, I make a small difference in the world in which I live, my now thirteen year old daughter is whole, happy and sensible for her age (though still very, very thirteen), and I’ve made and followed through on most of my plans. I still have a few to complete, and have a few new ones on tap.

It’s still not an easy life, though I’ve no right to complain. My daughter suffers from dyspraxia, which some in the education system want to treat as a mild ADD and which some want to ignore outright. After suffering four years of my group at work being threatened with outright layoff, and a year of peace, my employer has decided to outsource a bit of what we do, causing a lot of infighting that doesn’t see an end anytime soon.

You do what you can. Part of what makes the rough times liveable is hope and dreams. Both best become reality via figuring out how to make them into something tangible.

World of Warcraft. $15/month, hours and hours of fun.

Not something I would suggest to people who get hooked on computer games. I have seen people drop out of their education because of this game, and one of friends dumped her then-boyfriend, because he couldn’t understand how to prioritize correctly (hint: games are not more important than quality time with your partner, especially not when both of you are very busy at work).

Oh, I understand, Chris. Really, I wouldn’t be who I am without it, and that’s not a totally bad thing.