I am not unusual?

A few years ago, I figured out my lunch at work, and even when I am at home.  And I have been eating variations of that lunch ever since, as long as I am the one responsible for my own lunch.

I buy ciabatta bread, which even comes in a nice sandwich size at the local grocery store.  I grill both the halves.  Drizzle olive oil. Grind black pepper on it.

That's the basic.  The variations come from:
Cheese--Swiss or Pepperjack?
Greens--lettuce or mixed greens?
Add capers? Or olives?
A few fresh rings of onion?
How about pepperoncini?

And then the accompaniments.  Potato chips? Baby carrots? Orange? Apple? Banana?

Thus, while it might seem like my lunch is always a ciabatta sandwich, the reality is that the taste is different, every single time.

And it works.

Apparently I am not the only one who has a great time with variations of the same lunch combo.  And, hey, it is a good habit, given the variations and the well-roundedness of the meal:

Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition and food studies at New York University and the author of several books about nutrition and the food industry, says the consequences of eating the same lunch every day depend on the contents of that lunch and of the day’s other meals. “If your daily lunch contains a variety of healthful foods,” she says, “relax and enjoy it.”
So there is nothing wrong with this habit. In fact, there are many things right with it.

That's what I say.

When people were not affluent, which means pretty much all through human existence, food would have been very similar day in and day out.  The more the affluence, the more the spread. (And, the human figure also started spreading!)

When I asked Krishnendu Ray, a food-studies scholar at NYU, about dietary variety, he said: “Newness or difference from the norm is a very urban, almost postmodern, quest. It is recent. It is class-based.” So, when accounting for the totality of human experience, it is the variety-seekers—not the same-lunchers—who are the unusual ones.

Makes sense to me.

But, I thought I was one of the unusual ones! ;)

Cars and owners

When I went to buy a new car, to replace the aging horse that had served me well, I, like most Americans did not buy it cash down.  To get the loan approved, I had to get my credit checked.

The sales guy came back with the print out.  He had a huge smile on his face.

He sat down on this chair across from me, and slid the paper across and pointed to the credit score.

I asked him what that meant.

I remember his reply even now, almost a year later: "It means you can buy whatever you want at the best rates. That good."

But, of course, the party-pooping General Malaise that I am, I never buy whatever I want. 

Most Americans typically behave the other way around.  Despite their less-than-awesome credit histories, and not saving for the rainy days and years, they buy.  They buy big, and lots of it.  So much so that:

Car debt has risen 75 percent since the Great Recession in 2009, reaching an all-time high of $1.2 trillion, according to the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

This is a worrisome piece of statistic.  It is a danger sign because "car buyers could run into trouble if the economy takes a turn for the worse and their income drops, especially because they’re locking themselves into long-term loans."

Consumers did a similar thing before the Great Recession--they bought homes that they could not really afford, betting that there will not be any downturn in the economy.  And when the economic conditions took a dive, well, you know what happened!

As the global economy seems to be slowing down, one should take a note of this: "More than 7 million Americans are now at least three months delinquent on their auto loan payments, the benchmark for many lenders to trigger a repossession."

Imagine if the economy contracts over the next few months.  Jobs will be cut.  Paychecks will decrease.  But, the payments have to be made.  Or else.

The silver lining, if at all, is this:

The market for car loans is just a fraction of the size of the one for houses. “This isn’t going to be the next 2008,” said R.J. Cross, a policy analyst at the Frontier Group, a research think tank that co-authored the U.S. PIRG report. But these trends still spell trouble for individuals and families, and point to an enlarged economy pumped full of bad loans.

But, seriously, why can't people buy well within their affordable range?  They don't have to be General Malaise, but at least Major Buzzkill or, heck, even Captain Killjoy, right?

To flow is to live

Much to my own disappointment, I have stopped thinking that I am still the dashing young man with a whole lot of hair on my head.  I know well that I have become a part of the "old" generation.  In the old country, strangers and relatives alike who are younger than me address me as "uncle."  The next thing I know, they will talk sloooowly and LOUDLY to me with the hope that I will understand them!

I now have become old enough that there are children of my undergraduate classmates who seek my advice!  Of course, as always, I never advise them on what they should do.  

Whether it is students at my college who make the mistake of coming to me for advice, or the youth from the other side of the planet, my approach is no different: "What do you want to do, if there were no restrictions?" is what I typically ask them.

Almost always, it is a confused, stunned silence as an initial response.  Because, most never think about that.  If at all, their responses will be a whole bunch of general ideas.  "I want to travel." "I want to help other people." "Whatever I do, I want to own a nice car."  Yep, I have heard such responses, which can never get anyone any feasible plan of action.

Even you--yes, you--too perhaps did not think about that when you were young.  When you were 17, or even 21, did you think long and hard about what you wanted to do in life, if there were no restrictions and constraints?  Did you use that as a starting point in order to attempt to define the rest of your life?  Chances are that most people do not.  At that age, we are busily dealing with our emotions, or dutifully living out the elders' definition of whatever the right thing is.

What you and I, and almost everybody else, did not realize on our own, nor did elders take the time to tell us, is a fundamental aspect of life: At 21, we have barely begun the marathon.   It is a long life.

Life is a marathon, I now tell students.  And life is not easy.  In fact, for the most part, life gets harder in many ways as we grow out of our childhood.  As life gets increasingly challenging, imagine doing something that you really, really, really do not want to do, and having to do that day in and day out.  It will be a miserably long life, I would think.

A Cornell University economics professor writes about such matters and more in this piece, where he has a clear bottom-line:

Resist the soul-crushing job’s promise of extra money and savor the more satisfying conditions you’ll find in one that pays a little less.

Before reaching that bottom-line, he writes:

The happiness literature has identified one of the most deeply satisfying human psychological states to be one called “flow.” It occurs when you are so immersed in an activity that you lose track of the passage of time. If you can land a job that enables you to experience substantial periods of flow, you will be among the most fortunate people on the planet.

Have I told you enough times that I am one of the most fortunate people in this regard?