>I'm sorry--I know it's not practical because you don't have a time machine--but everyone, really, just think for a few minutes about what you actually want out of life. How you want to live, how you want to behave, what you want to do. And why. And then don't do things that run directly contrary to who you know you are.<

A good 75% of the letters Cary gets on here result from people not thinking through what they really want out of life. Among the many things that schools don't teach is how to figure that out before you make decisions that will affect your life. We're taught to reach for default symbols of happiness (a spouse, a house, money, a career) but are not taught to figure out who we are, what we want, and how we want to live. Or whether any of that crap we're told we need to be "normal" is really anything we desire.

Wow! You have a high paying job that gives you no security. You have a big house that gives you no shelter. You live in an upscale suburb that gives you no community. Soon you will have children, dress them up in designer clothing and send them to expensive schools and yet they won't feel like family.

How could this be?

Isn't making lots of money so you can buy happiness what the American Dream is all about?

How about, to coin another Talking Heads phrase:

"I wouldn't live there if you paid me."

When your lying awake at night in your fancy bedroom with the master bath try stop thinking about the housing market and ask yourself these questions:

What do I really want to do each day and who do I want to do it with? What did I like to do as I grew up learning to do something that makes lots of money and what type of people would I enjoy working with to do it?

What type of house could I call a home? What would the room look like that I could walk into and say to myself, "This is where I want my child to sleep, and out this window, this is what I would like her/him to see?"

What community would I like to live in where, as I walked home from the job I liked, with the people I liked working with, I could say hi to my neighbors and yes, I would love to join them for dinner, barbecue, cards, midnight skating or whatever friends really like to hang out and do.

And before you ask, "But how much would that cost?" Consider for a moment that right now, as you lie awake in bed unable to sleep, hundreds of thousands of Americans are doing that every day for less than 60,000.00 a year. Some as low as the poverty level.

They are sleeping quite soundly right now.

But then, they're mind is not focused on the price of the American Dream. They just think about the value of it all.

At best, LW needs time to adjust to the 'burbs. At worst, LW doesn't know who he is or what he wants and needs to figure those out. But some posters here are advising him to have kids to "grow up" or take the "focus" off himself? LW, for the love of God don't take this advice. The world is already overloaded with parents-who-feel-trapped and the kids they can't/won't raise right.

I don't like the suburbs either, have never lived there, but at least I can objectively see that people who go around saying "suburbs are cultural death" like LW and Cary are just as sheeplike as the suburbanites they shun.

You've just adoped a different lifestyle to claim your superiority with. You're just like them: falsely superior, judgemental, shallow, pompous. You just do it in the city instead of in the suburbs. Bully for you.

Now everyone: EACH individual has a right to live where they want, AND an obligation to respect others' choices AND to acknowlege that there are many paths to the top of the mountain and many good, fine, varied types of communities to live in. This supriority will lead us nowhere but divisiveness, counterproductiviey and BORING people talking about how superior They are. NOT!

crushin' on Mad Cartoonist. THAT is the truth!

try some paragraph breaks! you aren't as spellbinding as you think

so living in the suburbs makes you cook boring? YOU have control over your life, not McDonalds. You can cook exciting food anywhere: the city, the suburbs, the exurbs, small towns, inner suburbs....in a house with a mouse with a cat in a hat. Stop blaming the suburbs if your diet is dull. Put down the takeout menu and MAKE sure interesting nourishing food. Take back control of your life and stop blaming restaurants for your life choices.

my favorite is the guy who blames the suburbs for his sucky marriage. Dude, that's YOU, not the house. And since you're such a blamer, I bet your wife gets the losing end of a lot of that blame, bet everything that isn't the suburbs' or the house's fault is your wife's fault, huh? Poor poster, victimized by so many.

Oh the drama in this letter and response!

The words you use -- terrible, terrible, hate, hate, prisoner, trapped, servants, terrorists, torture, -- sounds like someone, like the THE MAN, has got you down.

Seriously, folks. When we are unhappy the tendency is to look at all the external factors to blame for our situation. It's the suburbs! It's the cars! It's the economy! it's the lack of sidewalks!

You can't do squat about those external factors. (Well, I suppose you could become an activist)

You can make choices in your individual life. In a logical way. By describing how you want your life to be NOW. By figuring out your budget. Making practical steps that are going to do you some good, not wailing against the MAN and those other horrible suburban-dwelling people we hate. We don't know them, but we hate them because they don't like our sushi and foreign films.

Stop spinning in circles.

Here's the big secret about what makes people happy: relationships. meaningful connections. conversation. stimulation. being around people.

You can live in a bit city of culture *cough*(cell phone culture? blackberry culture?) and be isolated and miserable.

You can live wherever you want, but make sure you are NOT ISOLATING YOURSELF from the people of the world.

Make connections, make friends. Be a part of your community. Socialize more. Destroy your TV and home theatre. Have friends over for dinner and drink wine. The point is to be connected. Only then will you be happy.

Otherwise you're just doing geographics (thanks for the new term Cary!)