5. A Job You Hate
In order to keep up with the Joneses, materially-speaking, you need a good job. Unfortunately, “a good job” has come to mean “a well-compensated job,” leaving things like personal satisfaction, overall well-being and the sense that you are not wasting the only moments of consciousness you may ever possess on things like TPS reports
as something of an afterthought. In 2013, 70% of U.S. employees reported being either “not engaged” or “actively disengaged”
with their jobs, and the more debt (or status-anxiety) you have, the more tied to that dispiriting series of tasks you are. While we may not have only one life, even reincarnation-proposing Buddhists believe that human existence represents the most rare and fortunate state of being in the universe
. So why spend most of it in a cubicle? It can only increase your chances of returning as a donkey.