How to Waste a perfectly good life.

A Short, cheerful guide to doing everything you are supposed to do.

All we want is stability — but do you even know what it is? We don’t, not really. So we borrow it. We let our partners, our parents, our teachers, our friends, our neighbours, our culture, our whole country hand us their version of stable, and we wear it like it was always ours, and then we spend the rest of our lives competing over who wears it best.

It starts early, this chase, dangled in front of us like a carrot. Study hard, my parents promise, and stability comes with the grades — so I study, twelve years of it, and forget every word the moment the last exam ends. Get into a good university, my school promises, that’s where stability waits — so I grind, and I grind, and I arrive, and the emptiness waits there for me. Get a real job, silly, my lecturers laugh — and of course, that’s why I’ve been grinding all along, to finally do what I want, to leave my mark. The world is my oyster.

But how do I contribute to society by selling a sugar drink, I ask myself. And after what felt like 10,000 rejections I landed an assistant of an assistant’s job, only to find that there is a race to the top for where true stability lies. CEO — these mythical people, they say, that earn 100 times the salary of an average worker. My eyes light up.

Meanwhile my friends, parents, and relatives tell me: stability is not in being the top dog, that’s a ruthless dog-eat-dog world. Stability is in steady income and finding a loving partner! Because only marriage brings stability. Why? I ask. Because… erm… God… Yes, God says so, and also, do you want to end up alone? You have a long life ahead, young man. Yet, I see my parents spending the least amount of time with each other, unless sleeping in the same bed counts as one.

I’m married now… boy, was that a production — the perfect ring, that dress, and how many steps on the cake? And for the first time in my life, I am now in debt.

Three years have gone by… One almost still evening my partner asks — what are we doing with our lives? We need a house, a car, a second income, a side hustle, a routine, a fit life — just look at these Jean and Johns’ gram, they have it all — we need to get them too, and then, only then, will we be truly stable.

I bought my first house… well, part of it — but in 40 years’ time I’ll have owned all the bricks in it.

“Congratulations, sir! You have now truly become stable,” says the life-insurance broker — but what if you die? Or your partner? Would you want to leave them… unstable? And your unborn children — what about them? Don’t worry. Even if you die, at least the house gets paid for. Oh…by the way… it’s only £100 a month — but we’ll throw in a free T-shirt.

Boy, let me tell you how stable I really am! So stable… You should try it — you must get married! My wife adores me, I tell my friends, pouring them a pint. Actually, this is stability — I feel like I’ve made it, when I’m chatting with my friends over a pint. I have become truly stable…

Oh, it’s morning — what a blasting headache I have. Where am I? Oh, 20 missed calls. How do I get home? Where is my car? “This is a sign of a completely unstable man,” yells my wife. “You didn’t wish goodnight to your children?” Children? I have children.

I take a long look at myself in the mirror — grey hair, wrinkled face. I’m 67. Retirement age. I thought I was just 30 and starting out. When did this happen? Why am I so tired? This clearly isn’t stability! “You need to cut down on the drinking,” says my doctor. This clearly isn’t stability.

I’ve always wanted to see the world. To sing. To write something. To move someone. To simply — live. But that, I suppose, was the price of being stable. The years don’t slow; they never slow. And now I am the old man at the head of the table, and the young ones look up at me — my grandchildren, their friends, bright and unmarked and full of asking — and they want to know how to live. As a stable man, I lean in, and with all the certainty I have left, I tell them: all you must seek stability. Study hard. Find a good partner. Buy a house. Then, only then, will you be stable.

And they nod, the young ones, and tuck the words away — the way I once did. They offer their praise. They tell me I’ve made it: free of debt, free of duty, free of the weight I carried so long I mistook it for myself. Free, too, of the one thing I chased my whole life, though I never once learned its name. The house is paid. The race is run.

The dinner has been eaten and the gathered have dispersed, and in the great still quiet I ask, am I stable? No voice comes through. Nothing — and then it all comes flooding, but there is no song I sang, no place I saw, no life I lived. By every measure they ever gave me, I am a stable man. Steady as a stone, and just as empty. I have never, in all my life, felt so… unstable.

Thankyou for reading the essay, the words I used to write it was sufficient. I feel like adding more or taking out any would be waste so I am writing a long thankyou for reading my essay!