Tax season causes more dread than excitement for this writer. Each W2 entry, gives more insight to the bigger picture. I’m poor.
Throughout 2024, I filed eight  W2s and 1099s, to discover how much less money than the prior year. The answer? A substantial amount less.
I rarely receive a refund. Taxes serve as a frigid factual assessment of one’s wellbeing. How much of your check is going to Medicare? What about social security? What if you die before you need either of those?

The plight of my 20s continues: what am I working for?
Comfortable misery?
Somebody please explain how juggling jobs, working 15-hour days while sacrificing sleep leaves food unaffordable? I insist I am not alone.
Not only in feeling this way, but not alone in being shafted by the shifting economy of which we share.
Some may be more accepting of our seemingly helpless predicament, but there has to be a point where we push back. Is there no way to get ahead? Is the game rigged?

I can’t say I go for that explanation either. Word on the street is the U.S. is the place people have the opportunity to get ahead without pre-existing generational wealth.

Where’s the money?

I’m sure as hell not making it punching a clock and working for “the man” and freelancing has been biting me in the ass for the last ten years.

Is it me? Am I the problem? Is there a way to solve the problem?

Life is short in the long-run and long in the short-run. It makes perfect sense to design a system where people become too preoccupied with their lives to push back.
We spend one-third of our lives in a state of helpless development. If by the time we turn 30, and we have not acquired children, wives, ex-wives, court cases, diseases, or a serious drug problem, we might have a chance to make a difference politically.
State representatives have to wait until they’re 25 years old. 30 for senate, and 35 for President. There is no guarantee our representatives will be able to make any significant changes if elected. So much for a career in politics.

If working for the man is a dead end street, and you’re not cut out for politics, why not start your own business?

The government loves having 33 million people preoccupied with their own small businesses. They’re too busy to revolt. They’re taxed on their losses, it’s a complete win for big government.

771,000 homeless people
6.8 million unemployed,
74 million under the age of 18
50 million people receiving social security (retired).
20 million people make up the blue collar workforce
37 million in poverty right now

That’s half of our population, frozen at the mercy of the system.

The hippies have a good approach but a faulty tactic. You can’t rebuke the system and live off of somebody else. Whatever cool thing is going down, somebody’s funding it.

Tenets like accountability, morality, and good conscience put heavy restrictions on upward movement in our capitalist regime.

We were born into a losing fight. Sold on a spun narrative of superhero founding fathers and manifest destiny.
Being a victim of the system holds no entitlement to change it.
It’s a numbers game. For every individual you have heard of, there’s thousands of others who’ve had it worse and you’ll never hear about.

I don’t want to admit defeat. But I don’t think I can beat the system either. If you can’t beat them…?