The first day of the rest of my life...

...is today.

I am twenty-seven years old.

I had a lady say to me the other day "oh, but you're just a baby!" and you know, I felt grateful to hear her say that because though I am not yet thirty years old, I know how fragile life is. I know a lot, and I know I know a lot - not to be a know-it-all, but to speak the truth. To know a lot comes with a catch - it then falls to you to use the information that you've gleaned, or that has been thrust upon you to make the lives of those around you better - to change the world in a small way.

Ah, I hear people saying: you are idealistic. But hey, I've always heard that from people - yes - for years - but I think the best thing to do about people who tell you your standards are too high is to ignore them! I say to people who's standards are high: go for it - because people set their standards far too low most of the time and don't do anything decent at all with the time they're given, claiming it was "too hard" or "too expensive" or "too impossible".

But here's my opinion about that: you know in your heart what is right. You know what the right way to go is. At the end of your life, which could feasibly be just around the corner, can you say to those cuddling around your bedside "I am sorry, I had to do my life's work because someone told me to do it - if I hadn't, I would have lost my job..."

I wonder often how the average bailiff really feels, aged eighty-five, when they look back at their lives of work - of bullying people, threatening people, making people cry...all over money. "It's not a nice job, but someone's got to do it!" they say - but are they right? I don't know. Do you really have to have a job you know is crushing people and ruining people's happiness every day? Why does that person have to be you? It doesn't, you know.

In the company I just left, there were recently two other incidences where stress had a hand (as admitted by the mothers themselves) in stopping life. One of them, a miscarriage which, while early, had a really awful effect on the young lady who went through it. Additionally there was a rather dramatic birth just a week ago or so, which matched what I went through so uncannily that I was very relieved when the baby was out and fine and beautiful, though little. Coincidence? Well, statistically, a scientist would say not - not if you take into consideration all the pregnant women in the company, and companies like that one, and have a little study of the complications that result.

Why are we all so hellbent on this "working for the man" thing anyway? Why is it that as countries grow, we are all forced to think that the only way to exist is to operate as bands of termites in termite hills instead of as individuals with unique things to offer? When did it become the norm to discard people along the way like trash because they were not operating on company principles? Is it okay to do that? Why? Are there just an overabundance of human beings now, so that we can trim off the excess like a societal haircut and throw the unwanted parts in the waste paper basket of America (or Britain, or France, or Russia, or Japan, or wherever else)? Seems funny that we can basically compare some of the human race to the leftover bits of plastic on a production line that are left once the bottle caps are punched out.

You know though, the really strange thing is that when you look at someone in the waste paper basket - someone homeless, you might find they're a really talented singer, or a writer. Someone with a whole ton to contribute, when the person living in the apartment building they're camping outside is the bailiff, knocking on people's doors to reclaim something as worthless as money.

Money really is worthless. We all know that inside.

Anyway. Here I am, self employed. It's my first day. Nice to meet you! Would I like some coffee? Actually I prefer tea.

I am kicking off my shoes and taking off the black shirt I've been wearing my whole working life. It's time to be a real, live human being. The kind of human an alien would be interested in kidnapping. Time to contribute something worthwhile to the world instead of taking everything I can from her. Time to ignore all the voices of the society we've created and step outside the boundaries and become a giant - not an ant. Time to grow up. Time to live the way nature intended.