Sunday, February 15, 2009

Is Faithful Outdated?


I've read a lot over the last few months about loyalty. Or lack of loyalty rather. I grew up thinking that I'd get a career, find somewhere amazing to work and work there forever. I figured I'd meet someone perfect, marry them and that would be forever. You get a house and you stay there. But that dream has been replaced over the last few years as I started to realize certain truths.
1) There is no job security. Our generation has come up with a million ways to make money. I've thrown fashion shows, written press releases, designed fliers, planned events, and even carried a couch. None of this is required office hours but it made me pretty happy (minus the couch thing I hate manual labor).
2) There might not be one perfect person. That's not to say that you shouldn't develop lasting relationships, those are essential but is it possible for the nature of those relationships to change over time without emotional drama?
3) Some of us don't want a house at all. Seriously.

I'm not so sure human beings, or at least the group that's currently under 35, are meant to be faithful to much of anything and is that such a bad thing? Maybe yes and no. It's a bad thing if you don't have those close relationships around you when you need them. If you only have people around you as a means to an end you'll end up sorry when you have a really rough patch and have no one to commiserate with. It's a good thing to not feel constrained by obligations to a job, or a certain city, or a mortgage payment.
So what do we value?
Perhaps this is getting, like the internet, more and more fragmented. We have more options than career and family. We can decide more openly where our loyalties will lie. Some people go in a weird direction with this and assume it's all about them. That everything is a means of self improvement. I've dated those. Run.
What do you think? Is it still career and family just repositioned or are we losing loyalty?

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