The greed of my generation.

Excuse me while I get up on my soap box for a minute. If you don't want to be offended then perhaps you'd best not read this particular entry but I think it needs to be said.

First of all I'd like to say that while it's going to seem hypocritical of me to say the things I'm about to say but more than anything it's actually an observation about the things that I need to change in my life. Alright here we go.

Yesterday I was talking to one of my co-workers who is considering going back to school. She has both financial and time constraints to completing here education. She tells me she can't afford it right now but she wants to be done her education by the time she's 30. This prompted me to think about the way all of the people of my generation are living.

I once read an article that said the the average Canadian is spending $1.25 for every $1.00 that they earn. When I first read this I was in University and quickly justified this by saying I'm in debt right now I'm spending $10,000 a year and earning about $7,000 a year at best, every other student in the country is in the same situation. Now that I'm out in the "real world" I realize that this is not just a problem for students.

Having watched my brother struggle with debt, I swore up and down that I would not live paycheck to paycheck once I got a job. However now that my roommate had moved out and I'm paying all of my expenses myself I realize that perhaps I'm living beyond my means. It's not that I don't have enough money to pay for my basic needs I can easily pay rent and grocery bills but it's all of the other little things.

My first thought was "where is all my money going? What can I live without?" For example do I really need high speed Internet at home? Yes. Do I need to have the largest range of channel packages on TV? Also yes. Do I need to buy Starbucks coffee every morning? probably not.

While this is not an extensive list of all of the money that I spend in a month. It made me think about all of the things that I have and all of the things that I want that are strictly for my own enjoyment or convenience. But when did it become nearly impossible to live on a salary of $40,000? Hell I lived on a fraction of that while I was in school and some of that went to pay tuition.

Another thing I've noticed at my company is the length of time that people stay here. Recently some of my co-workers have celebrated 30 or more years at my company. While it's listed as one of the top companies in the province very few people of my generation intend to stay here for any length of time. So what's the difference. Some would call it ambition, the desire to move up to a better job even if it means changing companies. The problem with this is that the ambition is less the desire to move to a better job and more to move to a better paying job. No longer is it desirable to be the "company man".

I really do have more to say on this topic, things like the idea that it is the "right" of young people to attain higher levels of eduction. But I think I've been up here long enough. Time to get down from the soap box before I fall off.