I Don't Want to Wait for Heaven to Be Happy

I never thought my life would turn out like this. I never even considered the possibility. Never imagined it. Never dreamt it. Never spoke of it. Never even jested that I might end up among the worn-down souls, living a mundane and unhappy existence. A life devoid of significant meaning or purpose. My presence on this earth feels interchangeable with my absence, as though it wouldn’t matter whether I was here or gone. I always believed an empty, unfulfilled life, with little to show for the years lived, was something that happened to other people. Those who never tried. Who never dared to hope. Not me. But now I see that kind of fate doesn’t always come from a lack of ambition. Sometimes, it just finds you anyway.

I had been confident that a bright future lay ahead of me, where all my dreams would come true and the happiness I so desperately sought would finally be mine. But here I am, in the so-called future I had eagerly awaited, only to realise that the promising future I envisioned never existed. I have become one of those people, the kind who’ve stopped believing in life. The ones who sit at the bus stop, staring past the road, eyes vacant; not only waiting for the bus, but for something, anything, to make life feel like it still matters. To prove that it isn’t already over. But nothing ever comes. Only the bus. On time. Empty. Like everything else.

I have ended up as nothing more than what the world sees as a failure. I carry with me a subtle bitterness, a resentment not just toward life, but toward those it seems to favour: the hopeful, the happy, the fulfilled. When I was young, they told me not to worry about the future, that time was on my side. But as the years slipped away and nothing happened, the promise curdled into: life begins at forty. Then forty came, and nothing changed. I was still waiting, still hoping, still searching for the life I thought would come.

The toll of the broken promise unfolded as a silent, inward breaking. A different sort of midlife crisis. Not the kind where you get a “meaningful” butterfly tattoo on your ankle or wrist, or some cryptic Japanese characters meant to symbolize “Way of the Warrior,” even though you have clearly been defeated by life. Not the kind that gets resolved through passionate escapades with much younger lovers, suddenly taking up marathons, or by cutting your hair and somehow feeling as though the weight of the world has been lifted from your shoulders by a single haircut. No, this was the kind of crisis that makes you wish you could fade into nothingness. To vanish without a trace.

It is the sinking feeling of uselessness. The gnawing fear that this is the full extent of what your life will ever amount to. The act of living feels like an unending battle with a predetermined outcome, where the victor was decided long before the war began. No matter how hard you try, it seems as though you are destined to lose in the game of life.

Sometimes I wish I could sleep forever and wake only near the very end, when it’s time to leave this world. Just long enough to say teary goodbyes to my loved ones, drown in a final Netflix binge, indulge in a little Cannabis sativa, and tear into saucy buffalo wings with my bare hands. I would savour the pleasure of fresh Kumamoto oysters, sip fine Bordeaux, and steady it all with lapsang souchong tea. I would make love once, like a mayfly, to the song ‘Stairway to Heaven’ by the O’Jays, only because of its fitting lyrics. A song that, contrary to popular belief, is not about some distant paradise but about a little piece of heaven found right here on earth. And when the end comes, I want my last breath to be laughter, as I am swept up in a whirlwind, carried away to heaven in a chariot of fire and horses of fire, like the prophet Elijah. Though I suspect I might be asked to step aside for a moment at the golden gates of heaven, just so the angels can confirm that I am still cleared for entry after my recent earthly indulgences.

Instead, there I was: broke and barely holding it together, in a place about as far from heaven as one can get. The Jobcentre. Never in my life had I imagined I would end up a pauper, but somehow, I had landed here, surrounded by hollow stares and endless paperwork, desperately seeking government assistance. I remember that first visit vividly. I sat in silence, eyes welling with tears, overwhelmed by shame.

It felt as if I were standing at one of the seven gates of hell, waiting to be admitted into the underworld of the system, ready to trade freedom for dependence. I had landed in a place where broken spirits and abandoned dreams gather, side by side with those who had come to see welfare not as a last resort, but as a way of life. The lady assisting me kindly reassured me that, due to Covid, many others were still affected and in need of government support, and that I had no reason to feel ashamed. But for me, it wasn’t about Covid. I was simply broke. Even if the pandemic had not happened, I would still have been sitting there, like a goose waiting to lay a golden egg. Naturally, I let her assume it was due to the pandemic, as I clung to whatever scraps of dignity I had left. The same sense of dignity that would never permit me to set foot in non-gastro pubs like Wetherspoons. I had to draw the line somewhere. Poor or not.

I had officially become one of those people I never thought I would be: the kind whose hardships are featured in television specials, exposés about those barely getting by on government benefits, intended to reveal either just how difficult life can be or maybe just to reassure viewers that they are not at the bottom of life’s barrel. Poverty porn positioned as social commentary. Programmes like On Benefits and Proud and Benefits Street once seemed to belong to a world far removed from my own. I watched them with the same intrigue as someone watching a documentary about a remote Amazonian tribe, never imagining I would one day find myself living that life. Life on the dole...

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