The Luv Doc: Your Gaping Existential Void

Dear Luv Doc,

My husband (eight years) has fallen into a rut in his career and doesn't seem to want to get out. He is wasting his potential and his advanced degrees working a midlevel job in a bureaucratic agency. It's nice that his job is low-pressure and allows him plenty of time off and decent benefits, but incomewise we have been stagnating for a while now. I would try to make more money myself but we set up our lives so that I would work from home and take care of our children, so my opportunities for advancement in my company are limited. I have been trying to encourage him to find a better-paying job, but he really only pretends to look through the listings and never follows through. I am not asking him to be overly ambitious, but I think he is wasting his talents and I am afraid we will be stuck in this income bracket forever. He seems perfectly content to just go to work, come home, and watch TV and play with the kids. How do I light a fire and make him more ambitious?

– Sad Cheerleader

Hmmmm ... sounds like somebody didn't get a shiny new Lexus with a giant red Christmas bow in her driveway this year. That's OK, I think deep down we all know that people who buy Lexuses as Christmas presents either lack imagination or are terrible spouses/parents. If you need me to explain this to you, I can't. Also, a little side note: If you're feeling a strong urge to engage me in a vigorous debate about the plural of "Lexuses" actually being "Lexi," don't. Lexus is clearly a name made up by some Madison Avenue marketing exec to lure overpaid pseudo-intellectuals into spending too much for generic, midlevel sedans and SUVs. I know it's super exciting to have an opportunity to whip out your 10th-grade Latin club grammar chops, but you'll only be embarrassing yourself and, more importantly, ancient Rome. Lastly, if you're still thirsting for debate, remember that I didn't say Lexuses are absolute trash. I'm sure they hold their own quite well against Chevys, Fords, Kias, and whatnot, but if you're buying Lexus as some sort of prestige brand, don't. Literally no one gets in a lather about Lexus owners other than Lexus dealers. Sorry. Facts hurt sometimes.

Let's say I'm way off on that Lexus thing. Let's assume for a moment you're not some sort of odious, money-obsessed materialist who believes that owning more expensive things or living in a more expensive ZIP code is going to somehow fill your gaping existential void. Cool. We're all going to die, right? Even Elon Musk. Sure, he might be sitting on a couple hundred bil, but every morning he has to roll out of his cryogenic sleep chamber and see his cold, dead eyes reflected back at him in the mirror – or maybe in the eyes of the person he's paying to fuck him. Literally no amount of money could erase that type of curse – and certainly not a boring-ass Lexus sedan.

So how, Luv Doc, do I beat back this gnawing depression? This sinking feeling that my life is of absolutely no consequence? Well, you got me there. Unlike Jesus, I don't have a surefire formula for eternal happiness, but I do know that complaining about someone else not doing enough to make you happy is one of the surest paths to disappointment there is. What if your husband actually is happy as a pig in shit? What if he actually is fulfilled and engaged and living his best life? Why would you want to fuck that up? No matter what you want to pretend, no one is keeping you from chasing that brass ring except yourself. If you want that mediocre Lexus sedan in your driveway, go out there and get it. However, it might help you to know that the accomplishment is never the key to happiness and fulfillment – it's the accomplishing. All that time you're wasting worrying about what your husband isn't becoming is time you could have spent becoming the person you want your husband to be. I say go for it! Be the husband you want to see in the world! It will be life-changing!