Why are people in this country so obsessed with “hustling” and “grinding” and slaving away as much as possible?
I'm a 20 year old college student. I decided to quit my job at a shitty amazon warehouse (which I've been working at while taking classes) and take the next semester off and just unwind for just one semester, no longer than that – and maybe go on a road trip or two, pick up playing tennis again (which I haven't touched since high school), reconnect with some old friends, and generally just fucking chill out for a few months after nearly 20 years straight of schooling and 4 years straight of working shitty warehouse/food industry jobs.
For the record, I live at home with my parents (we thankfully live near the university I attend) because I didn't have the money for a dorm and housing in this area is outrageously expensive. Oh, and my parents make a lot of money, so I couldn't get almost anything in terms of financial aid due to how high their salaries were – YET THEY DO NOT HELP ME WITH EVEN 1 CENT IN MY TUITION. Why? Because they worked through college (well, my mother was in the military so that paid for her college, and my father I'm pretty sure got sent large chunks of money by his dad, but at least they claim that they worked through it by themselves lol), and they think I shouldn't expect help. My dad literally brags about how at a time he made only $4 per hour and worked through college (this was in around the 1980s).
I live in an empty room that they wouldn't use if I wasn't here, I keep everything spotless and clean, I wash any dish immediately after I use it, I'm very quiet, and I even buy my own food/groceries. I do everything possible to make my presence damn near invisible to them. They literally would not notice I existed unless they actively tried to look for my presence).
So I told my family I was taking a semester off (I'd have been home anyways the past 2 weeks because universities are literally on winter break right now), and I've been living at home for just over 2 weeks ever since my finals – just relaxing for once. I linked up with my childhood best friend who I haven't spoken to since the 10th grade when we got into a fight lol. I've been reading some novels on my kindle. Cooking some recipes I wanted to try. Planning a road trip in Washington/Oregon/British Columbia with my girlfriend. Actually feeling somewhat happy.
But my dad is literally borderline fucking fuming at the sight of me just not doing anything and not planning on doing anything for a few months. He keeps telling me that I need to “hustle” and that I should be using this time to work TWO jobs and get ahead lol. This morning he barged into my room (doesn't knock of course, even though I'm 20 lol) and was like “What's the plan?” (the night before he literally forced me to apply to shitty fast food jobs and I halfheartedly did it in front of him because I wanted him to just go away)
Like…wtf do you mean, “what's the plan?”. The plan is there is no fucking plan. I told him “what plan? There is no plan right now” and he literally lost his fucking mind at me, called me lazy, etc. We got into a 2 hour long argument – oh, and at one point in the argument (the argument spiraled into all sorts of random unrelated BS) I was like “Well, if corporations can't pay their employees a good wage, that's not our problem and they can find a different line of business. Corporations aren't Gods”. And he literally replied to me saying: “Corporations aren't Gods” with “YES THEY ARE” (not sure if he genuinely believes that or not, it was a spur of the moment type retort, but wow). That honestly fucking shocked me.
So now I'm packing my shit up and going to live at my girlfriends house for a bit. Because my family was so fucking terribly triggered at the sight of me just relaxing and not slaving away at some shitty job for a couple weeks. Like, am I the bad guy here, am I just an out of touch piece of shit, or am I the reasonable one here? They literally have me second guessing myself and analyzing if it's me who's being an asshole here, but I just don't feel like I did anything wrong..
Sorry for any grammar mistakes, I typed this out on my phone. Anyone else deal with these piece of shit boomer parents? Like, I love my parents and wish them the best, but man are they morons when it comes to this type of thing.