Money or Meaning
Millennials are so hell bent on meaning! What happened to money, money money?
It doesn’t take very long to start a new job before thinking is this the right place for me. Am I doing the right thing with my time? I know I need the money but I’m really not feeling fulfilled at the end of each day?
I’m definitely not alone in having these thoughts almost every day. But hell would I dare to share these thoughts with my parents or anyone older than lets say 45. For them life is simple. Go to work, earn money, spend money, repeat. The never ending cycle of economic activity for the simple sake of survival has been the staple diet of humanity since who knows when. Or perhaps we do know since when, when Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge and were banished from the wonderful Garden of Eden. They had it all on a silver platter, but curiosity killed the cat, or perhaps just the freebie ticket through life, living on God’s grace alone.
The big wonder though is what happened to us? It was like come 1990 and the world flipped a switch. It’s not enough to just put food on my plate, I’d rather face the possibility of starvation than do something meaningless. And what is this meaning nonsense anyway? How does one define that thing that causes a tingly feeling in your stomach better than butterflies or even a steak and chips?
I’m not 100% sure but perhaps it has to do with the simple fact that as humans we refuse to live without purpose, because well what would be the point. And because we are so damn purposeful we cannot help but attach ourselves to the greatest purpose in life, making life just a little bit better for ourselves and those that we’ll leave behind one day.
And yes before you think what could possibly be better (for the very few that may be living under a cushiony rock in paradise somewhere), life could be so much better on so many levels, if not for us individually then definitely for humanity as a whole. Down here in Africa we still have 3rd world problems, although your travel agent could help you bypass them completely if you dared to want that, but they are still here and without your help or at least the bravery to face them, they probably wont be gone any time soon.
Anyway back to the point, what the hell happened to Millennials, and subsequent generations? How were we born so perfect (mostly Millenials), that we honestly believe that a meaningless life is not worth living.
For the next part I am going to breakdown some awesome calendrical stuff relating to the Jewish Calendar and the year 1990. Take a breath, here it goes.
The current year is 5785 in the Jewish Calendar, since Adam and Eve ate that damn apple ( or fig, or wheat or whatever it was), and Talmudic teachings, which are basically Rabbis of like 2000 years ago, teach us that 1000 years for man are like a single day before God. So every millennium another day passes, in the “GOD WEEK” and right now we find ourselves on “GOD’S FRIDAY”, the sixth millennium. Wow that came out sounding so cool, “GOD’S FRIDAY!”
Now, if you having been living under any kind of rock, not exclusively cushiony, you may be unaware that the 7 day week is actually a biblical concept, divinely inspired by the 6 days of creation and ending off with a very nice day of rest. “Thank God for weekends,” or as we say in the Shtetl (Jewish Ghetto), “Thank God for Shabbos.”
Back to the Calendar, humanity had been traveling through time for 5750 years and then bam, 1990 arrived so dramatically, and the world shook. Mandela was freed and South Africa transitioned to Democracy. Now if you hadn’t noticed, 1000 years divided by 24 hours means that 5750, was 12pm on GOD’S FRIDAY, what we call Erev Shabbos in the shtetl, and then the pre Shabbos panic kicks in. Forget about work, if we haven’t cooked we wont have anything to eat for Shabbos (no cooking allowed on Shabbos) and suddenly a haze of ‘Nothing Else Matters’ descends upon our lives.
Believe it or not, this happens weekly to Jews, and even more so we live for it. It’s the greatest thing ever, a whole day of no phones and work to just take it easy and chill. If you prepare on Erev Shabbos you will have a lekker Shabbos, and if not, well then you are an idiot.
And now we know what happened to the world in 1990. The haze of, ‘Nothing Else Matters’ descended upon the world other than perfecting the world and making it a better place in preparation for the Eternal Shabbos. We are making our way swiftly towards GOD’S WEEKEND, (I’m so excited) in the year 6000, when the world would have reached its perfection and humanity returns to the Garden of Eden ( which is basically Earth when you open your eyes and give a damn to care for it).
And that my dear parents and golden oldies is why we are constantly battling with the question of meaning or money.