I-Mockery Forum - "The World Breaks Everyone"

I stumbled on this, and thought it was rather interesting.

I knew this guy who was going to be a businessman. He was going to identify a need in the community, raise the capital, invest wisely, open a small, friendly business, and enjoy success.
Ten years later, he owns a couple of fast food restaurants. His employees hate him, his customers shout at him, he has an ulcer from trying to balance the books, and the chain is pressuring him to sell to someone who will make the stores more profitable. He tells me he's living his dream, but the look on his face during the evening rush calls him a liar.
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I knew this girl who was going to be an Artist. She always said it with a capital "A"--Artist. She was going to move somewhere with beautiful scenery (Taos, New Mexico, she said, or Alaska or Northern California), live cheap, and paint everything she could.
Ten years later, she is a secretary for an accounting firm. She works 45 hours a week and can type 80 words per minute. She hasn't touched her paintbrushes in six years, and there is no look in the world that is sadder than the one on her face when she sees her boss hang some cheap landscape print up in the front office.
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I knew this guy who was going to be a reporter. He was going to fight corruption in high places and tell the important stories that the readers needed to know. He practiced re-writing stories in magazines 'til they were better than the originals.
Ten years later, he bangs out a feature a day on inane subjects that are designed solely to fill space in the newspaper. He knows which deputies are brutal thugs, which judges are screwing their secretaries, which councilmen are skimming taxes, and which teachers are screwing their students, but he can't report on them because he doesn't want to get a reputation as someone who'll turn against a source. He claims not to remember his youthful idealism, and he may be telling the truth, for once.
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I knew this girl who was going to be a social worker. She was going to work with the underprivileged, and help them overcome their circumstances to become productive members of society. She was going to work with the abused and injured and hurt, and help them become whole, undamaged people again.
Ten years later, she is a social worker who hates every single one of her clients. She hates them because they are poor or abused or pitiful or helpless, and all they do is whine, and they're all liars and scum, and why can't they do something for themselves for once, dammit. She grumbles to herself that someone oughtta round 'em all up and blow their fucking brains out, dammit. If you remind her of what she was like when she was young, she will favor you with a glare, tell you she doesn't have time for reminiscing, and get back to work.
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I knew this guy who was going to be a cop. He wanted to be a cop for all the right reasons--he was going to help people and enforce the law and put bad people in jail and make the world a better place for everyone.
Ten years later, he is in prison. He and his partner beat a kid to death. They thought he was a troublemaker, so they were gonna knock him around a little to teach him a lesson, and he bumped his head on the sidewalk and fractured his skull and died while the cops were still laughing at him and telling him to get up and run on home. This guy I knew now serves as a lieutenant in a prison gang because they'll protect him from all the other inmates who want to shiv him.
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I knew this guy who was going to be a preacher. He loved God with all his heart, studied the Bible, wrote his own devotions, spent several years in seminary preparing to serve a church and its congregation with humility and love.
Ten years later, he works in the oilfield. The members of his small-town congregation decided one day that they didn't like his stand on (insert hot-button issue here) and fired him. He had a wife and child to support and couldn't find work with another local church. So he got a 12-hour-a-day job as a pumper in the oilfield and he comes home every night too exhausted to do anything but sit in front of the TV. He doesn't have time to read anymore, especially not a Book he already read twice when he was still in high school, and he sleeps late every weekend and doesn't get up in time to go to church.
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I knew this girl who was going to be an actress. She did a killer Ophelia and Rebecca Nurse and Lady Bracknell. She disdained Hollywood and adored Broadway. She made two trips to New York and one to Chicago to see plays and visit with playwrights.
Ten years later, no one knows what happened to her. She moved to New York, rented a small apartment, and her family never heard from her again. She might be a waitress. She might be a junkie. She might be dead. She might still be an actress. We wish we knew for sure.
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I knew these two people who were in love. More than likely, you know the routine: talked about each other all the time, worshipped the ground the other walked on, planned a long life revolving around each other, got syrupy and googly around each other and made the rest of us groan. The usual, commonplace miracles of chemistry and attraction and luck...
Ten years later, both of them have been married and divorced twice. They seem to spend most of their time in court or in counseling. They don't talk about each other or about anyone else with any affection. They haven't really loved anyone in years--in fact, they both claim, independently, that they are now too smart to feel that emotion for anyone. They say they don't miss that feeling, but a more bitter pair of cynics you have never met...
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I would like to think of this node as "The Society breaks everyone" rather than the world. It is the society that causes all these people to never achieve their dreams, to break each and every one of strengths each person has. I knew a lot of happy people a few years ago. They grew up, became more mature, and began to see what the real "world" really looked like. Then I watched as their happiness beginning to decline, bit by bit until they have become part of the depressed individuals just like everyone else. They, like me, have lost all sense of idealism and have become to be nihilists. It is such a shame.
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Sometimes people break the world.
There's joy out there, you just have to go find it.
There are always choices.
Make a difference.
If you hate your job, change. learn something else.
Stop whining, and do it.

This is a rant at myself as well, i'm not on any kind of high horse here.

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No.
I will not be broken.
Let them mock and deride me. My pride will survive it. I will not be broken.
Let them tear at me and beat me. Flesh will heal. I will not be broken.
Let them lock me in darkness. However black and cold my prison gets, I will not be broken.
Let them leave me, if they choose. Loneliness is hard, but I will not be broken.
I may bend
I may bow
I may even fall, despairing.
But I will rise, and straighten. I am strong, and I will not be broken.

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I knew this guy who was going to be a nothing. He had always been told so, by his parents, his teachers, everyone. No one treated him with any respect, becuase no one ever thought he'd achieve anything. No one cared what he was up to because no one ever thought he'd do anything.
Ten years later, he received a full scholarship to Oxford University, and is now an active, respected professor.

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I knew this lady who was going to be an old maid. She was brought up thinking she would always be alone, never love or be loved by anyone. She was totally convinced that she would die alone, and she never even imagined what a companion would be like. It was imprinted in her head that no man would ever want to be with her, she simply expected to never be in a relationship of any sort. She was told she would be alone, she believed it.

Ten years later, she is happily married. She has three adorable children who can never stand to be in anyone's arms apart from hers. She loves her husband, and he loves her. They look as if they'll be in love forever.

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I knew this guy who was going to be an alcoholic and had constant depression. As his drinking habits were fairly extreme, most people who knew him agreed that he was clearly going to lose his job, his family, and probably even his home. No one, including himself, thought there was any hope for him at all.

Ten years later, he is a dedicated school teacher and has not touched a drink in over five years. He is nearly always happy, and has a wonderful family living in the same house as his own.

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I knew this girl who was going to be in the same town until she died. She was certain she'd never see another country, let alone another continent. She expected to be stuck in the same town forever, seeing the same people everyday until they managed to escape one by one to schools or job oppritunities. All that she would know would be what was there in that town.

Ten years later, she is hitchhiking through Asia. She has travelled through America, Europe, and is currently heading towards Japan, having just visited India. She carries a large back-pack, and meets people from all over the world. She also manages to keep in touch with them. She stays where she can, she eats what she gets. She's happy.

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I knew this guy who was going to be a construction worker. He didn't want to be a construction worker, but he felt he couldn't pass up the job. He really wanted to be a musician, but he didn't think he would ever make it. He packed up his drums, and decided to give them a rest.

Ten years later, he spends his mornings working the counter at a music store, and in the evening he plays his drums out on the street, because he wants to. Between those two jobs he earns enough to live, and although he makes less than he would if he was in the construction job, he can do what he loves to do. He believes he made the right decision.

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I knew this girl who was going to be homeless forever. She was homeless at the time, and she honestly believed that she was worthless because of it. She thought she would never be someone until she had a home, and she also thought she would never have a home. She didn't see the point in living.

Ten years later, she still has no home, but is just as happy as if she had one. She has many friends, some of whom have homes and some of which don't, and she lives her life as if she had a home herself, because she does. The city she lives in is her home, and she has decided that where she sleeps doesn't matter as long as she is still near the people she cares for.