I've been reprimanded by many people who think the ultimate goal is to be rich, to be "big", and I don't show enough ambition. I've been reprimanded for not doing wildly illegal things for profit that could land me in jail for decades. And at the time, I had an obvious thought:
Am I wrong?
Everyone with a voice on the matter is saying these things. Do I need to retire at 30 or die trying? How much health and safety should I be sacrificing to get to that goal of total independence from work?
At the same time, it makes sense. What's the point of living in general, and even more, what's the point of living if every action one takes is for the sake of someone else's benefit, with none to oneself? But that contrasts with the thought of how I would get to that spot, up high in the mountain, when I'm just slower and carry weight less aptly.
As a programmer, I'm trained in creation. I know how to make the frameworks used for success, the frontends used to get millions from investors. And still, I'm unable to ride the waves I help create. I look and see the smiling faces calling for success, jumping higher than I ever could, making sacrifices and leaving things behind that I didn't even know one could live without.
I have really tried to go along, then to catch up, and then to even walk at a similar rhythm, but I'm just left behind over and over by jogging passersby, who seem mortally wounded yet happy to move fast, and the slower, hunched ones, tell me it's okay, I'm fast enough, but the seed has been planted in my head that I want more, yet my stride is too slow to achieve that vision.
It creates a cognitive dissonance in my head. I want, yet I don't do what's necessary. I see, yet I can't have. Every day that passes, I feel closer and farther away than I've ever been, and I feel my stride slow down. I don't feel hopeless, just increasingly realistic. Maybe one day I'll find what I'm told is there. Maybe I'll die without having tried hard enough.
Maybe one day I'll just find happiness on the streets like Diogenes.