From the quote:

They thought that a split-level house in the suburbs, two cars, two color TVs, country club membership, a bank account children in good prep schools and then in college, and they had it made. They got it–only to discover they didn’t have it.

Once thing I’ve noticed about the suburban dream is that most people never discover that they “don’t have it.” Rather they consciously, or sub-consciously (depending on their self-awareness, intelligence, and ability to accept reality) live in an ignorant bliss, satisfied to live out the remainder of their days striving for a greater degree of mediocrity.

For example, if I were to make a list of things I want to accomplish in my life, material goods would not be on that. Rather a more general goal such as achieving a level of income to live well would appear on the list. Yet, some people will justify working a shitty job and living an unfulfilling existence because they strive for some material goal that provides very little intrinsic satisfaction. So they’ll say, “In three more years of work, I’ll earn enough to buy a sweet Lexus.” They’ll get the Lexus, drive it around for a year or two basking in social status and false self-worth, and shortly thereafter they’ll think, “man, in four more years I can buy a Porsche.”

Even worse still are the late thirty-somethings that will say things like “I’m an Accounts Payable Analyst for a car dealership and I love my job.” The degree of self-delusion in that statement is unbelievable. Who sets out to become a meagerly Accounts Payable analyst? How can you “love” that job. Even at 26, a large portion of my friends have resigned themselves to the popularly prescribed notion of happiness. They are “content” at working jobs they hate, and balance that off by buying nice things.

I believe it is the refusal to conform to the conventional pathways that separates people from suburbia. That same stubbornness also has consequences and can make life a lot more difficult according to conventional definitions of quality of life, but it is the internal happiness, and true personal achievement that make all the frowns from my neighbors at my ill-manicured, yellowish-green lawn worthwhile.