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News & ArtsThursday, March 21, 2013
Comedy / Life The Onion Makes the Internet Laugh-Cry
Posted by Anna Minard on Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 5:00 PM
Are you working late in an office tonight? Are you waiting to "follow your bliss" until after your shitty commute? Well, The Onion is here for you with some serious life advice:
My advice? Just find the thing you enjoy doing more than anything else, your one true passion, and do it for the rest of your life on nights and weekends when you’re exhausted and cranky and just want to go to bed.
It could be anything—music, writing, drawing, acting, teaching—it really doesn’t matter. All that matters is that once you know what you want to do, you dive in a full 10 percent and spend the other 90 torturing yourself because you know damn well that it’s far too late to make a drastic career change, and that you’re stuck on this mind-numbing path for the rest of your life.
Is there any other way to live?
Good evening!
1
Oh, The Onion, these days you seem to have lost some spark, but once in a while you still pull out gems like these.
2
I'll be the first to admit: this hurts, in the funniest way... no... still... thinking about things.
A little dark for the Onion. Reminds me of Bob Powers' stuff, which I'd totally recommend if the idea of filling your pockets with confetti and stepping in front of a bus makes you chortle.
A little dark for the Onion. Reminds me of Bob Powers' stuff, which I'd totally recommend if the idea of filling your pockets with confetti and stepping in front of a bus makes you chortle.
5
This is absolutely brutal! It is sort of like showing Dr. Strangelove during the heart of the Cold War. You can laugh, but inside you will be crying.
6
I read this the evening before starting my 2nd bagboy job mopping floors at a grocery store. I have a cold, and my college degree is collecting dust as my student loans hunger for the meager paycheck I expect to receive. This is just the push I needed to break out my wacom tablet and doodle before bed while listening to Electric Six's "I Don't Like You".
7
@6 You can do it! I guarantee you you won't be mopping that floor for long. The consuming, driving force of pure desire is overwhelming.
8
Did you read the hilarious satire of that heart wrenching real world advice in The Slonion?
Everyone should write blog posts and reference the Slonion, or pre-emptively use the line it may sound like something right out of the Slonion, but...
Close it. test
Slust find the sling you enjoy sluing more than anysling else, your one slue passion, and do it for the slest of your slife on nights and sleekends when you’re exhausted and slanky and just want to go to sled
Everyone should write blog posts and reference the Slonion, or pre-emptively use the line it may sound like something right out of the Slonion, but...
Close it. test
9
While I am impressed by the brutal way in which this message is delivered, I still think the whole premise behind it (that if we all just did what we love, all would be well in the world) comes from that very American motivational self help perspective, which is individualistic, self indulgent, and can only exist in an economy where there is lots of disposable wealth to be siphoned.
Instead of being miserable doing a job you hate, because it's not your most favoritist, funn hobby in the world, how about we all were the kind of people who got satisfaction and enjoyment from being useful?
If your desire is to add value to the society in which you live, then there are many occupations which can fulfil this desire, and you just have to find what you're good at, but if your desire is indulge some passion which may or may not be considered to have value to anyone else on the planet, then you might have to limit it to weekends.
Americans (and other western capitalist cultures) are brainwashed into having selfish desires, which is why these desires frequently don't bring in enough dough to live on.
It is said that if you do the thing you love, you'll never work another day in your life, (but that's only if someone wants to pay you for it).
If the thing you love is of some value to others other than yourself, you might just be able to make it into your day job, but if it's not, then maybe you need to come back down to earth.
Maslow's hierarchy of human need puts things like food, water and shelter at the large base, and self actualisation at the skinny bit at the top, yet most Americans think everyone should try to make a living from doing the things in that small skinny bit at the top.
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Instead of being miserable doing a job you hate, because it's not your most favoritist, funn hobby in the world, how about we all were the kind of people who got satisfaction and enjoyment from being useful?
If your desire is to add value to the society in which you live, then there are many occupations which can fulfil this desire, and you just have to find what you're good at, but if your desire is indulge some passion which may or may not be considered to have value to anyone else on the planet, then you might have to limit it to weekends.
Americans (and other western capitalist cultures) are brainwashed into having selfish desires, which is why these desires frequently don't bring in enough dough to live on.
It is said that if you do the thing you love, you'll never work another day in your life, (but that's only if someone wants to pay you for it).
If the thing you love is of some value to others other than yourself, you might just be able to make it into your day job, but if it's not, then maybe you need to come back down to earth.
Maslow's hierarchy of human need puts things like food, water and shelter at the large base, and self actualisation at the skinny bit at the top, yet most Americans think everyone should try to make a living from doing the things in that small skinny bit at the top.
11
@9 I disagree. I mean I get where you're coming from but its still wrong. The idea that life is to be spent doing something you hate for someone else (who makes money of your labor) is not something negative.
Sure it can be done as some kind of self-actualization program of individualistic dreams but it doesn't have to and the alternative is horrific. Work for works sake. Live by accepting that someone else is abusing you. Love the work you do and die regretting it.
You mention the hierarchy of needs and I think it is rather telling that you propose that shouldn't strive to getter higher on it but instead accept that others are at the top rungs due to our inability to rebel against it.
We (western society) has become a society of work for works sake and stopped trying to do what we did, make it more effective so we can have more leisure time and less work.
Anyway - I agree with the idea that self-actualization is a poor substitute for liberty and individualism doesn't do shit for society, the opposite - giving up, accepting a subservient role, doesn't do anything for society either. I mean there is a third way after all.
Sure it can be done as some kind of self-actualization program of individualistic dreams but it doesn't have to and the alternative is horrific. Work for works sake. Live by accepting that someone else is abusing you. Love the work you do and die regretting it.
You mention the hierarchy of needs and I think it is rather telling that you propose that shouldn't strive to getter higher on it but instead accept that others are at the top rungs due to our inability to rebel against it.
We (western society) has become a society of work for works sake and stopped trying to do what we did, make it more effective so we can have more leisure time and less work.
Anyway - I agree with the idea that self-actualization is a poor substitute for liberty and individualism doesn't do shit for society, the opposite - giving up, accepting a subservient role, doesn't do anything for society either. I mean there is a third way after all.
12
Well, Jens, I'm not convinced that we're in disagreement here. Since capitalism, and mass production, work has taken on a slavelike, and humiliating flavour. Before industrialisation, we may have worked hard, and long hours, (milking the cow, harvesting the crops etc), but we worked for ourselves/ families, not for "the man."
The hatred of work, and the desparation to reduce the number of hours we spend working, so we can have more leisure time is intensified by the soul destroying, slavelike and meaningless nature of work in a capitalist society.
Leisure time is great, and I'm all for it, but and I'm all for "work" that is simlutaneously self actualising, such as being a poet, or a rock star, or an artist, or whatever, but someone still has to grow the food / build the shelter; in fact, a lot of people need to do this stuff, and the best way to make for a happy society is not for us to all be artists / professional self actualisiers, but for work to be regulated so that it remains dignified, and so that no one is enslaved by it (i.e. long work hours).
Imagine a simpler life, where we only work to produce goods and services that we need, where all businesses are actually worker's cooperatives, and where we sing while we work, where we enjoy one another's company while we work, and where being an artist, or an academic, or a philosopher isn't just for the few, but for anyone and everyone, because our lives are simple enough that we only have to work a couple of hours a day. A world where we have time for "self actualisation" but where we also find the so called boring work self actualising, because we do it together, and because work is part of what it is to be human, and because being useful is good for the soul.
The hatred of work, and the desparation to reduce the number of hours we spend working, so we can have more leisure time is intensified by the soul destroying, slavelike and meaningless nature of work in a capitalist society.
Leisure time is great, and I'm all for it, but and I'm all for "work" that is simlutaneously self actualising, such as being a poet, or a rock star, or an artist, or whatever, but someone still has to grow the food / build the shelter; in fact, a lot of people need to do this stuff, and the best way to make for a happy society is not for us to all be artists / professional self actualisiers, but for work to be regulated so that it remains dignified, and so that no one is enslaved by it (i.e. long work hours).
Imagine a simpler life, where we only work to produce goods and services that we need, where all businesses are actually worker's cooperatives, and where we sing while we work, where we enjoy one another's company while we work, and where being an artist, or an academic, or a philosopher isn't just for the few, but for anyone and everyone, because our lives are simple enough that we only have to work a couple of hours a day. A world where we have time for "self actualisation" but where we also find the so called boring work self actualising, because we do it together, and because work is part of what it is to be human, and because being useful is good for the soul.
13
"Before industrialisation, we may have worked hard, and long hours, (milking the cow, harvesting the crops etc), but we worked for ourselves/ families, not for "the man." "
The concept of Feudalism would like to say hello.
Now if you go back a few million years before our species was our species you might find the group working for themselves instead of for the alpha apes. But in a pack animal like Homo Sapiens the only time to enjoy pure freedom is after a society collapses.
So get to work and tear it down.
The concept of Feudalism would like to say hello.
Now if you go back a few million years before our species was our species you might find the group working for themselves instead of for the alpha apes. But in a pack animal like Homo Sapiens the only time to enjoy pure freedom is after a society collapses.
So get to work and tear it down.
14
@9 agree., @11 disagree.
There is something creative that I love to do best, but I have only about 100-200 fans, when it's given away for free, and if I charged for it I think I would make nowhere near enough to match my comfortable standard of living.
There is something creative that I love to do best, but I have only about 100-200 fans, when it's given away for free, and if I charged for it I think I would make nowhere near enough to match my comfortable standard of living.
15
If I walked away from my "day job" in pursuit of my dreams, even if I were instantly successful (not top of the pile successful, just successful), I'd lose probably 70% - 90% of my income, my family's health insurance, mortgage payment would be iffy...
I have two jobs: the job that pays the bills and the job(s) that feed the soul. I've come to accept that I won't make a living at my soul job and I'm OK with being tired A LOT.
Dead on, Onion. Dead on. And no, there is no other way to live.
I have two jobs: the job that pays the bills and the job(s) that feed the soul. I've come to accept that I won't make a living at my soul job and I'm OK with being tired A LOT.
Dead on, Onion. Dead on. And no, there is no other way to live.
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