This morning, i got an email in my university account. It asked me if i wanted to get money for simply taking surveys: complete with many exclamation points. I figured what the hell, & contacted the person at the email given. The email i got back directed me to this site, which, according to this site, appears to be legit. Currently, until the second it turns January 7th, i think, i can sign up for half the registration cost.

However, it's not the registration cost that's making me unsure over this whole thing. I mean, if i do it soon, i can sign up for a mere $34, 50% off the usual. And, after all, i take other little online surveys for small amounts of money (nothing over $5). So what's the big deal? Something just doesn't feel right about it. I don't want to get suckered & find out after that is is a scam, but there's something more than that. It's the fact that it's just so ridiculously easy & lazy. I mean, i'm not just going to not work for my living; that's out of the question. I may be insufferably lazy, but oftentimes i am procrastinating. The thought of not having to work, of being eternally lazy does not sit with me. After reading Influence, it was obvious that, though these people have Money with a capital M, they still worked for it, & are still doing so. There are other people, like those in art magazines, who have to work & try to find a balance when it comes to what they do/can do. In Influence, the fact that no one seems to want to have a work ethic was brought up quite often as well. My work ethic may be lousy & nigh nonexistant, but then i can see what they're saying.

This bothers me because it's like someone is dangling this in front of you & it's so easy to grab it-- they won't even pull it away, supposedly-- & most people in this day & age would go, "Are you fucking crazy? Money for taking surveys! Just go & pay the $34 for it already!" But that's just it-- most people nowadays would rather be lazy while still somehow managing to make ridiculous amounts of money. It's not reasonable (especially, you'd think, with everyone running around screaming about another economic depression). This is enabling such behavior. I am worried about becoming homeless or at least near destitute. I have never had an actual job in my life, & no one thus far will hire me. It would make sense, one would think, to sign up for something that is apparently not a scam, & get money for trifles. But because Caitlin is a foolish hypocrite, i feel uneasy. I want money (who doesn't) & am lazy, & yet the thought of it being so easy, & of being so lazy, unnerves me.

And the thought of having money kind of unnerves me, too. It may sound absolutely, ridiculously stupid, but i have that kind of "i'm from Woodlawn" near pride. As in, "i'm not one of those little rich bitches from Towson or Annapolis or wherever; i have to deal with what i've got." That's not to say that i don't have money & don't spend money. But i'm not rich, & the thought of being something like it is unnerving & seems like betrayal, somehow. Plus, the whole "corporations paying you for your feedback" is not sitting well with the little rebellious part of me. Rationally, i know corporations are inescapable; not only that, but they are made up of people. But at the same time, i don't want to inflate them any more. And the homogenizing of products can definitely be seen as negative-- although i think that once you buy something & make it yours, it is no longer some mass-produced monstrosity-- you give it wear & tear; a personality. You can buy a toy & at the outset it's a mass-produced thing, but after a while, it becomes yours. Plus, that's kind of inevitable itself. Yet it still makes me feel unsettled.

But i have nothing that i can find to sell on Ebay, & i have yet to make a sale from my Etsy shop. It would seem logical, near prudent, to take this seemingly legitimate offer & make some money, even while i don't have a true job. But the thought of years-- millenia-- of people actually working & "making it" because of their hard work makes me feel ashamed. It's wrong to make generalizations-- i'm sure some rich people are decent & all that-- but i do despise rich little bitches who can just go blow their money on whatever using Mommy & Daddy's credit card, & they've never done shit in their lives. I will not watch or read things like Gossip Girl, or Housewives of Any County, or My Super Sweet Sixteen, because people like that-- the feeling i get from things like that-- disgust me. It just seems like this could be something that, at the outset, one looks at it & says, "I won't become like this, i will simply use this for things i need, put some away, use it sparingly, use it to travel maybe, donate it," whatever. And then it slowly chips away & you become one of those lazy people who decide, "Why do i need to work when i can get $50 for answering a survey about toilet paper?" I may not be a person i like very much at all; i may be a stupid, insensitive jerk that hates stupid, insensitive jerks, but i really do not want to become someone that just lazes her life away because, oh, i don't need a job. Let's just go off on a plane tonight, let's buy something from Japan, or maybe some art; i've got the money. I don't like people like that, people who throw around money like it's nothing, while there are people who don't have enough of it.

I mean, i've always said to my friends, remember me when you're famous & i'm living in a cardboard box. Because these people seriously have skills & talents, & they exercise them to the best of their abilities. They have goals. I'm a procrastinator that doesn't believe in goals & has never had any, with mediocre talent. I am horrifically lazy. People like Janna & Maggie are able to really put amazing amounts of work into whatever they do, but i only ever go halfway. I can't seem to find that push to really put that 110% everyone always talks about into the things i do. I mean, i'm thinking of emailing Janna the website simply because i think she could-- not exactly "need the money," which sounds condescending (although she does have an apartment when she's at school, so she needs it more than i), but it seems like because of who she is, she could do so much more with it. She actually works, she could actually use the money for... something.

I don't know. I just really don't know what to do at all. I mean, seriously, i don't really want to be exorbantantly rich, when i really think about it, because i don't like mindless rich people, & neither do most people.

I'm probably blowing this out of proportion & being stupid as per usual, but this is really unnerving me & confusing me. I am at a complete, total, & utter loss as to what to do. Who am i, a lazy, pathetic, slacker ass, to take advantage of something like this while there are people working for what they want, whatever that may be? Everyone else is trying & trying to get their shit together, scrounging for whatever they can get. How am i supposed to take advantage of something when i'm lazy & dependent & just overwhelmingly, idiotically pathetic? Twenty years old & still no more independent than a two-year-old; i suppose i deserve all the goddamn coddling i get.

1:50 a.m. | January 06, 2009

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