So No One Told You Life Was Gonna Be This Way

We all know the opening theme of Friends. For many of us, it evokes happy, feel good emotions. Maybe it has something to do with the impulse to clap in time whenever that part rolls ’round, or maybe it has to do with the fact that Matthew Perry is an incorrigible goofball, or maybe it has something to do with the fact that it’s a sit-com and should be inherently happy and feel good. In any case, there’s something slightly depressing about the picture painted by the lyrics in ‘I’ll Be There For You’ by The Rembrandts.

So no one told you life was gonna be this way
Your job’s a joke, you’re broke
Your love life’s D-O-A

It’s like you’re always stuck in second gear
Oh when it hasn’t been your day
Your week, your month, or even your year

A little further down, there’s something about being in bed two hours after work starts, burning breakfast, and the like. So what happens when the lines between fiction and reality blur, and you find yourself living out the intro to Friends minus the fountain splashing shenanigans and synchronized claps?

Mike Tyson famously said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”. This is no less true outside the boxing ring… or even the local pub, or pretty much wherever someone gees up at you.

Everyone has their game plan figured out until a punch, barrel, or whatever metaphorical (or literal) obstacle is thrown at them.

Naturally, shit like this will keep you down as they are designed to. There will be days where throwing in the towel seems like the best possible option, and starting over again seems categorically pointless.

I offer no concrete solutions. This one’s a pep talk for all of you out there; those of you whose cars have broken down, whose places of residence have evicted them, whose boyfriends have refused their break-ups, and whose professional careers have become stale.

The long journey to the middle has more than one road, and you will adapt. We as a species always have. We outlived dinosaurs, multiple apocalypses, waves upon waves of diseases, the collapse of empires, endless warfare, and even the fashion of the early 2000s. You yourself were, nay, are the strongest sperm. This day, and everyday thereafter, is your bitch. Carpe f*cking diem.

No one ever did tell you life woud be this way. Your job may be a joke, you may also be broke, and who really has their love life in order anyways? When your gears are stuck, start driving automatic like the rest of the modern world. The game plan was never written in ink, but in graphite that smudges, smears, and wears down the paper after rubbing it out a few times. And mark my words, you will be OK.

by Garry Lu