EAT. SLEEP. NETFLIX…There has to be more to life than this

As a speaker I have opportunities to speak in schools at times.  On one occasion the school asked me to speak on “following your dreams.”  Since I had started a small business designing and producing T-Shirts they wanted me to speak to the students about achieving the new American Dream: getting paid to do that which you love doing.  I was confident that I could deliver a message that would resonate with the students and motivate them to pursue their whimsical occupational dreams (as ridiculous as they might be).  I had decided to interact with the students (always dangerous) and ask them a live question to start the talk off.

I walked up to a student who was closest to me and posed the question to him “If you could do anything for the rest of your life and get paid to do it, what would that be?”  I was fully prepared for ANY answer.  Astronaut, video game designer, underwater basket weaver.  I was going to find a way to affirm their dream and push them toward hard work and giftedness in a way that would make those dreams feel more achievable.

The student stared back at me with a look of shock and befuddlement.  I encouraged him by saying “you can say literally anything.”  He swallowed hard and said “I’d……….eat.” 

The student body all started snickering.  I smiled.  I should have known better.  I had spent fifteen years as a youth pastor up to that point.  I knew teenagers.  He was messing with me.  I had put him on the spot and he was going to give me a cute answer that would be a great joke in study hall after I was gone. 

I was ready for this.  I pivoted quickly to another student who looked slightly more ambitious sitting right behind him.  I said “Ok man, what about you? If you could do anything for the rest of your life and get paid to do it, what would that be?”

This kid thought about it for a second and said “I’d……sleep!”

I should have seen that coming….. 

All the students erupted into laugher.  I started to fear that my presentation was getting ready to go sailing off a cliff.  I frantically searched for a smart looking kid (someone wearing glasses).  I found him sitting a few rows back.  I sifted through the student body and walked up to him and said “Listen man, you can’t say ‘eat.’  You can’t say ‘sleep.’ But if you could do anything for the rest of your life and get paid to do it, what would you do?!”

He looked at me like a deer in headlights, his eyes darting back and forth. “It can be anything…..  Literally anything.  Comic book artist. Video game tester. Just give me something that resembles an occupation.”  He looked as if he had an epiphany, he smiled wide and blurted out “I’d……..watch Netflix!”

The sound of the laughter was deafening.  His friends beside him both gave him high fives.  As I watched their faces contorted in jubilation, at my utter humiliation time slowed down for me.  As I looked around the room. I was overcome with a feeling of existential dread.  They were processing this exercise as one big joke (which should not have surprised me) but the sad, terrible truth was this: THEY. WEREN’T. JOKING….

These kids were speaking out of the content of their heart.  If money was no issue and they were guaranteed success, the greatest outcome that they could achieve was to eat, sleep and be entertained. 

Eat, sleep, be entertained.

Repeat. Eat, sleep, be entertained until eventually they died….. 

And if they were lucky heaven would just be a continuation of that cycle.

I nervously laughed and pivoted the talk to salvage our time.  But afterwards as I was in my car driving home I just kept thinking about the deep tragedy.  The masses had spoken that day.  I couldn’t even entice them with fantasies about wealth, worldly possession or social credibility.  I couldn’t even appeal to their ambitions.

The reality is that a few short months later most of these students would receive their dream life of eating as much as they wanted, sleeping as much as they could and being entertained non-stop, and it looked much more like Hell than the Heaven they had created in their minds.

In March 2020 the global pandemic of COVID 19 changed everything.  These students found themselves in quarantine for weeks.  They were able to eat whatever they wanted all day long.  They could sleep in until after lunch, continually staying up until 3am and awaking at 1pm.  They watched every show on Netflix, binging whole seasons of content in a day (Tiger King anyone?). 

And nobody was happy…

During this period I received all sorts of messages of hopeless from former youth group students I knew.  I had to call the police on one student who had locked himself in his room and was attempting to end his life (he had shared a detailed plan with me and as a mandated reporter I had to take action).  Collectively we were all losing our minds. Eating, Sleeping and watching Netflix was just not enough to fulfill us. 

We need purpose.  We need mission.  We need to make a difference.