The 4 Greatest Things in Life (Everyone Manages to Ruin)
Health
Almost everyone wants to be healthy. Some people legitimately don't give a shit, and God bless their greasy, heavy-breathing hides for having the willpower to not give a damn if they live or are desirable or can get up the stairs without blacking out and screaming during their unconscious night terrors on step eight. The rest of us do want to be healthy to a greater or lesser degree, whether that means you're the guy who runs 2 miles every morning before work or you just really debate whether or not to order a side salad instead of fries and end up just choosing fries anyway. It's the want that we're concerned with, because that's where misery is born.
If you're already a fitness model, you probably don't remember the misery, but if not, you know how much you hate wondering if gluten is bad for you. Who the fuck even came up with that? Gluten? That we live in a world in which people have to wonder if gluten is bad for them is sicker than paying someone to pee on you, because at least that's between two consenting adults and can be easily cleaned up. The gluten thing is a clusterfuck that no one asked for. Unfortunately, we're all aware of it now, and it's always in the back of your head when you're on the bus eating a loaf of bread, thinking, "Hey, am I ruining my insides? Why is everyone staring at me? Did I forget pants again?"
I once ate a boot filled with ham.
Every day you see ads for new diets, products proclaiming health benefits derived from shit like acai berry, probiotics, and super steak, and helpful tips for not being an outrageous, cholesterol-and-saturated-pudding-laden fatty. I think I made up super steak, but it sounds like it'd be awesome if it were real. You choose to either ignore these or look into them, but regardless of the choice you make, there's a good chance, even if only for a moment, that you wonder whether you need to make a change. And then later you choose that salad instead of the fries. You choose the stairs instead of the elevator.
Now before I lose you, I'm not saying those are bad choices. Those are good. It's good to want to be healthy, it's good not to butt chug butter at parties and use a scooter to go from the buffet to the toilet to the buffet again. But the reason so many diets fail and so much money is paid out for all these new fitness programs and jerk-off replicator Shake Weights and juicers and shit is because most people want the benefits but not the effort. Write that down: I'm the first person to ever think of it. But the noteworthy part is that you make yourself miserable trying to make yourself happy and eventually misery wins out, so you stop and gorge yourself on microwave burritos and unhappy masturbation because it's way easier than gluten-free rice crisps and a stair climber. And, in a depressing way, happier. And you'll do it over and over.
Work
Nothing is more sad in the life of a human than the life of a human. You have a few good years of childhood when you can eat candy all the time, watch cartoons, and actually get to discover masturbation for the first time before the crushing reality of what "life" really is sets in. We live in a world that demands, for the most part, that we toil until we physically cannot do it anymore. And while as a child we're told we can be anything we want, it's obviously a lie, because who the fuck wants to work at Arby's? Not who needs to, because everyone at Arby's needs to work there, as sure as Kardashians need cameras pointed at them to prevent them from withering into shriveled husks full of forgotten, mediocre porno and meringue, but did any of those little beef jockeys wake up when they were 9 from a beautiful dream of mixing Arby-Q sauce? God no. Most of us never do what we want, or we do it fleetingly, or in our spare time after work. But work is what you have to do. Because you need money for food, for shelter, for ladies of the night who charge extra just to make you some pancakes, like that's fair.
There are varying degrees of satisfaction in the workplace, and likely a lot of people are "mostly" happy with what they do, but a lot of that almost satisfaction is born from resignation. Like how you decide what courses you should take in college based on the demand that will exist in the real world for people with those skills. You mold your life to fit a world that tells you there's a demand for male preschool teachers, even though children are less appealing to you than actual mold.
"I cry myself to sleep at night. Now spit."
Dental hygienists are probably the best example of the despair of modern employment. They needed to do something, they weighed their options, and the best they could come up with was dental hygienist. I don't mean this as an insult; I mean that, when you weigh things like salary, challenge, and skill, and potential for employment, a dental hygienist is a really good choice. You're not slinging burgers, you make a livable wage, and you provide a necessary service. I will never, ever believe there's a single dental hygienist on Earth who wanted to be one, who pursued it for love and interest rather than necessity. No one wants to be the person who drains spit and blood from the mouth of an incapacitated and narcotic-addled stranger.
Work tends to work out like an arranged marriage, where you end up together because shit happens, and maybe in the long run it'll work out, or maybe not, but something had to happen, and running off to live in a cave wasn't an option.
Leisure
Leisure-time activities used to be things you did to relax and enjoy yourself. God, what an age that must have been. Now, much leisure time is filled with abject hate and complaining, because as a society we're good at it, but also because I can't finish this sentence. I really don't know. I do it, too, and I don't know why. Do what, you ask? Make myself miserable, of course.
Ever read the comment section under an article on Cracked? Ever read the comment section anywhere on any website? You'd think a solid 50 percent of all the people who go to that site, and it really doesn't matter what site it is, just hate it. They despise it. And that's fine -- maybe you do despise the site. But why keep going back?
Why keep watching shows you don't like and then tweeting about why they suck? Or go see movies made by Michael Bay even though you've never liked a Michael Bay film? I guarantee right now that Michael Bay's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will be ripped apart online -- in Facebook updates, on Twitter, and on numerous message boards -- and not one of his pseudo critics will be some poor schlub who just came to America from a quiet Polynesian island where he'd never seen a Michael Bay film before and was totally unaware of his shitty style of thunder-tit filmmaking. They'll be the same people who hated all three Transformers movies and Armageddon and every other cinematic toilet grunt he's sharted out during his career. And no one will make them go see the movie; they'll willingly pay because they want to see how much they hate it. They want to know how badly Michael Bay didn't make the movie they wanted to see, and they'll do it again when he makes Transformers 4, or Michael Bay's Sense and Sensibility.
People seem to really enjoy not enjoying themselves. It's just a way to pass the time. I'm almost positive this explains the existence of things like Nickelback, Donald Trump, and Lindsay Lohan. Do you know anyone who sincerely likes any of those three, not in an ironic way, or in a "Let's see what dumb shit happens next?" way, but just for what they offer society? Of course not -- they don't offer society anything. But not liking them is kind of fun, because you can think of clever insults to sling at all of them the longer they continue to pop up in the news making the world around them some kind of painfully sad joke.
Sex
On a basic level, sex is very easy, I hear. You put a penis somewhere, there's some friction, a grunt or two, orgasm, cry, sleep. It's simple biology, and so easy that even cats can do it -- and cats are fools. Ever seen one with its leg up, licking its own stink button? Come on.
On a realistic, human level, sex is the most complicated, dominating part of our existence, and don't for a moment think anything wields more control over the human mind than sex. Men who run the world fall in the face of pootie tang; we see it on the news again and again. You're squirting on interns, you're sexting pics of your dong, you're in a public restroom with an 18-year-old delivery boy, and so on and so forth. No one can resist the will of the wiener. The call of the cock. The pull of the poon.
It's broken dream flavored!
It's because the desire to do the dirty is so strong that it goes from being awesome to being awful for us in the cold, hard light of day in those brief moments of unhorniness after we've gotten what we want. And this applies equally to men and women despite my examples, because ladies are just as capable of waking up in a cold sweat when they realize what horror they've committed and see the guy with the Kid Rock neck tattoo lying next to them.
I read recently that sexual repulsion is diminished by sexual desire. That sentence explains every fantasy you have ever had that you won't admit to and every kind of porn or sex toy you've ever seen that made you wince. When you're in the mood for a nice Reuben sandwich, the idea of maybe licking another person's hiney is pretty egregious. But when you're three drinks into the night and all horned up, you would start a hiney-licking chant if you thought there was a chance that the rest of the room would take it up in a chorus muffled by your own spread cheeks. It's only gross when you don't want it. When you do, it's awesome, and then afterward you feel gross about it until the next time you do it. We've all been there. The pursuit of pleasure will make you hate yourself once you've been satisfied, but man, the pursuit and achievement parts sure are awesome, aren't they?
FYI, I apologize for that muffled cheek line. It was gross. Or was it? *drops mic*
