I believe a large swath of people‘s discontent, depression or anxiety arises when they feel they don’t have a purpose, they aren’t productive humans or they don’t really feel meaning in the way they live their life. They aren’t fulfilling or satisfying what they feel they’re meant to do or most equipped to do. I also believe a huge portion of these feelings stem from a lack of community and connection.
I feel like I encounter such a multitude of people who are dissatisfied with something. I don’t mean complain’y. But there’s some unrest, some grand discontent, something missing in their lives—within them. They feel like they don’t know what they’re doing or why they’re doing what they do, and they can’t find their “purpose.” (I include myself in this, depending on the day). They aren’t fulfilled or satisfied, or they just can’t quite find their thing. Maybe their anxious, depressed. They’re searching for some greater meaning to it all.
Sometimes (or ofttimes) it feels like it’s a privilege to have such a worry, instead of worrying about whether or not we’re going to be eaten by a bear or if we’re going to be able to forage enough food for the day or winter. (Although there are some peeps out there who likely still have these worries. But anywho.)
Recently, I reencountered a man I’ve seen thousands of times over the past 18 years working at Kroger in (I go to Kroger ALOT) but now he works at Goodwill in Murfreesboro, TN where I spotted him again. His hair seems to always have been salt-and-peppery, and he’s always appeared the same age. His eyes appear dark until you move closer, and there’s a lightness about them, kind of like a blueish marble. His glasses are chunky black now, but I think they used to be the thin kind, with mostly glass and wiry rims.
I was standing in line waiting to buy my perfectly-picked thrift store goods, and I could tell the customers ahead of me were having some awkward or frustrating conversation with the cashier (who I had already recognized as Kroger Man).
When finally I arrived to check out, I asked, “What has your day been like?” (I purposely ask this form of question to everyone as it usually elicits a more exciting convo than “How are you?” which normally results in a one-word, socially-programmed, non-sincere answer, that is: “Fine.”)
His response for me was, “I woke up and wanted to be dead.”
I gasp internally and scan through hundreds of potential responses, overthinking, overturning them all except: “I hope that changes.” Bluntly and rapidly he declares, “I don’t think it will,” slinging the words at me without glancing up, just moving his hands robotically scanning my gently-used items. I asked if he had talked to anyone about it, and he said they just made him feel worse. He didn’t want to pay someone to make him feel worse, he explained. I mentioned that people had suggested I talk to someone too, trying to connect with him, but that I also didn’t feel like spending the money or time on it either (although that’s not totally true).
I asked what he used to like to do that made him happy.
“I can’t even remember anymore,” Kroger Man said.
I was wracking my brain to hand pick the “right” words to say because I wanted something to change in him. I wanted to pull him out of this for even a second. I wanted to “break through” to him. Whatever that might mean, not that I feel like I have some power to do so, but it doesn’t keep me from wanting to.
Before I continue, I found it slightly odd reencountering this man and to have such a conversation. About eight years ago I wanted to interview him. I was writing for Middle Tennessee State University’s newspaper at the time, and in class, one of my journalism professors brought up this fellow in Kroger who’s worked there for years upon years, and he noticed the man painted his fingernails consistently, all kinds of colors, maybe with sparkles. He wondered what Kroger Man’s story was, and I began to wonder as well. This was the same man I was encountering at Goodwill. I had planned to interview him for an article way back when, but I never got around to it, as so happens in life.
And here I am talking to Kroger Man about how he wants to be dead, seven and a half years later.
(*Note: he’s obviously much more than just ‘Kroger Man,’ but that’s what he’ll be called here.)
I asked where he was from, and he said he’s lived around Murfreesboro since he was three. He sardonically chuckled and said maybe he should’ve moved along time ago, when he was little. I asked “What’s your most favorite place you’ve been?” and without any hesitation he said: Vegas. The word flung at me like a frisbee, but with assurance and excitement.
I sank a little inside, thinking: Blurgh, I’m trying to connect with this guy on some deeper level and all he wants to talk about is strippers and gambling.
He immediately explained, as if to read my judgmental mind, “It’s not because the strip clubs or the gambling.” Oops. “It’s all the people watching. And there’s always, always something going on. You can wake up at 3 a.m. and there’s something to do, something to watch and be a part of. People don’t realize there’s a good part of Vegas,” he said.
He lit up. Completely. The life of Vegas, the human connection, the activity and community is what he most enjoyed. I wanted to convince him that you don’t have to go to Vegas to find this.
He began talking more. He worked for Kroger for 37 years, forever in customer service and retail. I told him I had been in customer service/food and service much of my life in some capacity. I could tell he felt some sort of camaraderie, but he also appeared to look as though he was thinking ‘I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into!’ Not in a rude way, but in a concerned kind of way. He said to me, “If you’re going to stick with this, make sure it’s something that makes you feel productive.”
Bam. This connected with what I was going through and constantly thinking through daily at this point in time (and sometimes now).
Because I was asking questions and he was engaging in talking and smiling, he miss-typed something in the register and had to correct it. I apologized for talking and asking too many questions, but he said “no, no, don’t apologize you’re cheering me up! You should come back in a couple hours and talk again!”
His face had previously been scrunched up, as though in pain, but now it was loose and his eyes were lighting up. The blue marbles were alive!
Selfishly I was proud and impressed with myself for bringing that out in him. I want to be able to do that for more people. I’m certainly not saying it was solely because of me and my questions that brought him lightness, it may have just been the right moment, the right words at the right time. But I want to find ways to bring that happiness and light out in others, whether via me or other people.
I want people to feel productive, to have meaning and feel noticed, heard, seen and to have community.
I think a lot of us are going through our lives not quite sure what we’re doing or why we’re doing it. And we don’t really feel like we have meaning or purpose. We’re just a cog in the wheel, as they say. The cog in the something? I can’t actually remember the saying right now. A cog in the machine? That might make more sense.
I cried as I was walking out of the store, and I cried when I first spoke this into my phone notes driving down the road. I often lose this feeling—feeling extremely alive and connected to people, to strangers, to the world, to the universe. To God or spirituality or energy or whatever is your cup of tea.
But I find and feel it in these fleeting moments, and I have to hold on, and remind myself daily, hourly.
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People sometimes ask me what I ultimately want to do in life, that is, what “would be your ideal job?” I often respond with something that has to do with writing. Maybe something about how I like to ask questions and bring people together, blah blah blah. And then I get uncomfortable, don’t know what to say and begin asking them questions. (to distract from the fact that I often don’t know how to put that into words, or frankly I’m just not sure, or perhaps not sure how to go about it).
What I ardently want is to help people find meaning and purpose in their life, to find community, to feel noticed, cared about, seen, heard and loved. It all sounds warm and fuzzy when I write it out, and it certainly doesn’t sound like a “job.” I don’t like to say it aloud because it rather sounds ridiculous at times. Many of my friends and acquaintances and family members are the banker, lawyer, seemingly “by-the-books” kind of people. (Sorry guys. Hello!) I don’t really want to say things like this to them because I feel like they’ll just nod in quiet judgement. Classic, hippie, dreamer, Mary-Margaret. Sounds like a good way to be broke.
This description of what I crave to do probably doesn’t have to be my “job,” per se. As there are a multitude of ways to accomplish this, in various capacities with various peoples and populations, whether it’s your job or just how you choose to act and treat people on a daily, hourly basis. I just have to find the specific way I want to go about it. Or maybe I already do this in some capacity, I just don’t realize it. Or it hasn’t turned out the way I thought it would, as life goes. Sigh.
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Obviously, I don’t really know how to fix everyone’s discontent, depression and lack of connection. This has been a struggle of my own, though I don’t like to admit it. Sometimes it makes me feel selfish or weak—thinking about what my “purpose” is. Why can’t I just be satisfied?
I may not know how to fix it, but I do believe talking about all of this is crucial. It’s necessary. Talk about what you’re interested and what lights you up. Speak up if you’re dissatisfied in your everyday life. Do something about it. Make a change. Say something. I’m not saying it’s easy. And I know there are people in situations that feel irrevocable and drowning. Maybe they really can’t say something or make a change. But many of us can. And those of us who can do something may be able to help those who are unable to do so.
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In today’s world, we often become so caught up in “what do you do?” and “where did you go to school,” a myriad of status symbols, shiny cars and gargantuan houses. "My clothes were hand sewn by Egyptian hamsters in the Himalayan Mountains. Only $825 for a pair of socks.”
I just feels like many people are floating through life missing out on what it’s all about (this goes for me too ofttimes). It usually takes someone’s death or a tragic experience—it takes pain to make us change our mindset and our life. Don’t let it get to that. If something tragic has happened, maybe your realizations are unfolding as these words trickle out onto the page. Maybe you’ve already figured out life and you’re just seeing what crazy brouhaha Mary-Margaret has to say today. (Thank you.)
This writing won’t connect with a great many people, as a great many people don’t think about such things or don’t need to. They are satisfied. Or maybe they’re just sliding through life unaware of, well, life—unaware of what’s unfolding around them.
In society today, we essentially have all our needs met. (Not everyone, but a great majority.) We can easily access food—we don’t have to go hunt, capture or spend many months growing our food. We walk into fluorescent-lit buildings and grab what we need without much thought.
We don’t really have to walk anywhere if we don’t want to, we don’t have to get up to turn on lights or the tv because we can use voice commands. With a tap of a button on our phone or computer we have food, drink, any kind of goods delivered to us that day, or that hour, any time. We don’t have to leave our homes, we don’t have to speak to other people to do really anything if we don’t want to.
We don’t have to find creative ways to entertain ourself or seek others for entertainment and connection, as we have an exponential amount of any form of entertainment at the click of a button. We can watch, read, experience and listen to anything at any time. We never have to “endure” silence. We would never dare to just stand in the checkout line. Yes, just stand there, waiting, without looking at our phone, without checking emails, texts or game scores and without scrolling through the 47 pictures we took of our food at that restaurant last night. Gotta get the right filter to make those three baby carrots and that whipped beet dressing look juuuust right. We forget to engage with the humans all around us—in the checkout line, behind the register, at the coffee shop, our coworkers, our friends, our families, our significant other.
For the majority of us, we no longer really have to worry about “staying alive.” We aren’t hiding from saber-tooth tigers or building shelters to protect us from an oncoming storm. Our human needs are met. So what’s left? How do we find purpose and meaning in our life when now all that’s left to fulfill is the emotional part?
We have to be intentional about how we spend our time, our money, how we prioritize. We need to be intentional about being in community with others, actually connecting with other human beings. I have a bad habit of boxing myself off from the world because it’s often just easier to just stay in, stick with what’s comfortable and be alone.
I don’t know how to “fix” it all, but I think it all starts with awareness. We have to acknowledge all of this and talk about it with each other. We have to surround ourselves with people who build us up, encourage us, challenge us to do more and be more—to do what we really are made for and desire. We have to be willing to be vulnerable with our fellow human beings. We have to listen to one another, stop judging each other, stop assessing someone’s ranking in society based on their job title. What you “do” isn’t defined by your job title—rather, it’s what you do in all those other spaces, the tiny cracks and slivers surrounding every part of your life, it’s how you go about doing anything in life and your intention behind it, it’s how you treat yourself, others and the world around you.
I think about Kroger Man often. I’ve returned to this Goodwill multiple times, but I haven’t seen him again. I’ve tried to look him up online, but fell short. I don’t think about him because I pity him or just because I worry about him (though I do worry sometimes). I think about him because I connected with him. And I, too, needed and wanted the human connection that day, and on multiple days. I want him to know that I was intrigued and entertained and surprised by him in the best way when he began to speak, and when he lit up about what interested him.
I don’t know that he’ll ever see this, and the interaction was likely not as big of a deal for him as it was for me, but I just want him to know that he made an impact on me. And his advice about “feeling productive” helped me make a big decision in life recently.
If anyone knows who Kroger Man is and knows how to connect me with him, please reach out to me. I want to finally, finally interview him almost eight years later.
Or please share this so more eyes can see this.
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Ending note: I had stopped writing for a while as I’d subconsciously or maybe consciously convinced myself that I didn’t have anything noteworthy or new to say. I was potentially making a fool of myself. Everything has been written that needed to be written, I thought. And in some ways that’s probably true. You can find anything and everything, it’s just a matter of being exposed to it. However, it’s also not true. Because I don’t really write for others, not really. And I think that actually might be true for a great many writers. I write to help myself figure things out, to think through issues, questions and struggles. I write to let something out, to get it out of my body and let it live on the page (or a screen). I may have said this before in other writing, but in high school, my A.P. English teacher said to the whole class (though she likely wouldn’t remember), “Mary-Margaret thinks in her writing. That’s where she works through things and speaks.” I was a shy gal, so that’s the main place people could learn about my thoughts and opinions. So I write for myself. I write because I have to.
This certainly isn’t to say some part of me doesn’t hope my writing impacts someone, even in some small way. I do hope that, but I don’t count on it. I’ve felt camaraderie and connection to writers and other artists through the vulnerability and struggle they reveal in their art. We’re all writers and we’re all creators in some way. We all have our own way of doing and saying things.
Your words or your specific actions may be the exact way someone needs to experience or hear something to help them in some way and to make a change in their life. It may make them feel connected, understood and seen.
My plan is to write on this incomplete website/blog of mine more often, post some interviews and articles, videos—just for kicks, for thinking, for questioning and for building community. Bye for now. Maybe we can talk to each other in the checkout line soon.