As I do every other Thursday – I got paid today. So before I spent my paycheck on “stuff” – I decided to pay the bills. In doing so – I was reminded just how much it costs to simply exist in this world.

You may not realize it until you sign that check – but we have to pay to see, to sleep, to feel well, to have necessities like electricity and water – and to eat. I know it is obvious that we have to pay for these things and it should not come as a shock – but I guess I never realized before just how expensive existence really is.

From over two hundred dollars so I can have electrical power, to twenty-one dollars so I can cook food, to one hundred dollars so I can communicate with the outside world, to seventy-five dollars so my jaw would stop hurting – to nine hundred and fifty dollars to sleep inside of a house rather then on the street – there is not one essential in this world that does not come with a price.

While I realize that in today’s society, money walks and everything else does not – I just can’t believe that we have to pay money for things that we would die without. Paying for things like cable, a computer, a CD player and Internet access is one thing – but having to pay for things that we would not be able to live without is crazy – especially considering the fact that if you do not pay for them – they are taken away from you.

I absolutely love the fact that if you miss a payment on your gas, phone, or electric bill – those companies have the right to take those services away from you. And I adore the fact that you do not even get your paycheck without the Government first taking their share before you get yours.

And what about those unfortunate souls who do not have the means to afford the high cost of living? Sure they are provided with the essentials from the Government – but what they receive is such minimal amounts of what is needed to survive – that most of them don’t even take what little they are offered. From homeless shelters where those who choose to go there wake up with no stuff because it is stolen by the other residents, to food that is the stuff that no one else wants – to welfare checks that can’t even pay for a month’s rent in the worst neighborhood – the law of the land is basically if you don’t have money – you can’t live.

I think that as a society, we function pretty well. I just think that perhaps the things we need to exist should not come with such a high price tag – because if we spend all of our time working to make money, and then spend most of that money just to live – then what are we really living for?