I visited a local taco shop the other day looking to score a couple of shredded chicken burritos. Love those things especially with bell peppers and grilled onions crammed inside. Waiting for my food, I asked one of the young workers taking orders how it was going.
“Livin’ the dream!” was his reply and I immediately chuckled.
I’d heard that statement plenty of times over the years—even using it myself. It’s generally said in sarcasm, even so, I’m sure there are some folks out there who actually mean what they say.
This fellow should’ve been happy just to be working, although that seems to have gone by the wayside considerably since my generation… Okay, stop right there. Young readers don’t want to hear about our generation no more than they want us to talk about theirs. It’s been that way going back to the beginning of time.
I suppose to some millennials, living the dream would be akin to a Paris Hilton floating around the world on a trillion-dollar yacht, with servants at every corner waiting to refill their glass of Perrier-Jouet champagne. I can only assume that’s what these people drink based on stereotypes alone. Hey, Paris Hilton might even crave Hires Root Beer like me, in a crystal glass of course instead of an aluminum can.
For us older folks, living the dream takes on a different meaning after passing sixty, at least for this old man it does. Living the dream means crawling out of bed without my back kinked up to the point where I can’t ______ (you fill in the blank) because it’s different for all of us.
Living the dream is being able to park my car, and as I limp to the store, turn around to see that I actually got it between the lines, for once.
I’m not so much into this living the dream theme as I was when younger, these days, just give me the living part. I always dreamed I’d own a Lear jet, but that never happened. At this point I could care less, preferring to drive everywhere I go instead of flying.
You can see a Hecht of a lot more country this way. A former coworker of mine, John Hecht, always used his last name out of context like that for a chuckle. He won’t mind if I do the same.
Never being one of those rich folks that Forbes Magazine likes to tout, even going so far as to rate them from one to a thousand, life’s been rich enough in other nonmonetary areas and there are no complaints.
As I recall, Pastor Chad Garrison, at Calvary Baptist Church, once said that the poorest people in the United States have things better than something like 98% of those in third-world countries. I might have the number off a tad but you get the point. If that’s the case, I’d probably be looked at as a zillionaire by those destitute people, sadly so.
Living the dream to someone in Ethiopia I’m sure is much different than what young and old folks in America equate things to. Having clean water is undoubtedly at the top of their list. Most likely, the same applies to residents of Mozambique and Somalia, while having something to eat each and every day is only a dream for some of these folks—nothing else.
Next time I hear someone tell me that they’re living the dream, whether in jest or being serious, I’ll smile and have something fruitful to say in return.
“Yes, yes you are!”
I like to write junk... 