Space Man

This quote comes from an episode of This American Life. It’s a work-related story I’m about to discuss in more detail here at the blog, but this moment (as devastating as it is) isn’t quite on-theme for the main post. Here goes:

Most of our lives are spent finding parking for the job we don’t want to do. […] And after any number of years, those routines accumulate, and that’s more or less your life.

What the heck? That’s one of the grimmest things I ever heard. A life spent finding parking. Maybe it’s not typical. Not everyone drives. Not everyone lives in New York City, as this correspondent does. But even if just one human life is spent this way, it’s a tragedy.

I’ve said before (in The Good Life, perhaps) that the times I’ve felt the most desperately unhappy are the moments when I’ve been preparing to do something I don’t want to do. Walking up the hill to college, for example. I could handle the actual “college” even if I didn’t want to do it. But the walk up the hill was an insult. The quote tracks.