The Brochure Lied About Life (And I Bought It)

When we're kids, we're handed an invisible brochure about life.

It promises the perfect family.

The perfect marriage.

The perfect career.

The perfect church.

The perfect happily-ever-after.

Then reality shows up.

Families are dysfunctional. Marriages involve two imperfect people. Workplaces are filled with... well... people. Churches are hospitals for sinners, not museums for saints.

Maybe the brochure wasn't telling the whole story.

In this episode of Crappy Catholic, I talk about disappointment, disillusionment, why so many of us feel like life broke its promises, and why that realization can actually point us toward something much better.

Sometimes faith doesn't remove life's absurdity.

It teaches us to laugh at it while keeping our eyes on Heaven.

If you've ever looked around and thought, "This isn't what I signed up for," this episode is for you.

Transcript

Man, I don't know which brochure you got, the one that told you what life was going to be all about, but mine was really different than what life turned out to be, and maybe you experienced the same thing, but you know, when you're a kid and you grow up, you are told about and you imagine the perfect family, the perfect marriage, the perfect church, the perfect career, the perfect country, the perfect life. You know, we read all these kid books and these fairytale books about happy ever after and how wonderful and perfect everything could be, right? And we were told things like, you know, if you work hard, you'll be rewarded. Marriage completes you.

Family is always there for you. The good guys win. Church people are holier.

If I'm good enough, people will love me. Growing older means becoming wiser. Success will finally make me feel secure.

And then you jump into life for even a little bit and mostly probably after like grade school, high school, maybe college, if you've gone to college, during that time period, even if you didn't, all of a sudden you're in the 20s and you're like, okay, well, my family was supposed to be perfect and we were all supposed to love each other and we were all supposed to stick up for each other. And then you find out things like family dysfunction and family roles and things that you're all of a sudden it wasn't as perfect as you thought it was supposed to be or should be, right? Like we have the black sheep, you have the the lost child, you have a scapegoat, you have roles assigned to people in your family and all of a sudden you're bawling like a little black sheep and you know, your family isn't the safest place to be. Or there are the perfect families, I guess.

There are those families that are functional, right? They all get along and they hang out together and they love each other and everything. But it's not something like out of leave it to beaver kind of family. And yet we're led to believe that yeah, family is everything.

That's where you go. That's your safe spot. That's where all the good stuff happens.

That's your safety zone. The um, you know, the other thing is the perfect marriage. All the fairy tales, right? The happily ever after.

The princess and the prince that go off on the white horse and they I don't know. It's funny because in those cartoons and those Disney films and everything they show the couple going off to the happily ever after but they never show the happily ever after. Like what happens when they get their electric bill? Or what happens when the prince finds out the princess is leaving her makeup and cosmetics all over the sink? Or she finds out that he's leaving his dirty clothes all over the bedroom, right? Or he picks his nose and likes to put his hand up his shirt and under his belly when he's watching tv and he, you know, she can't get him to do anything and they don't do anything together and all that good stuff.

And then kids come along and they can't agree about, you know, how to raise the kids or what they you know, what they want them to be or the kids turn out to be rowdy and everything. So it was always this image though that once you got married and you found that soul mate everything was going to be perfect. And what you really found out is that the person you married probably has as many challenges and faults and shortcomings as you do.

So you think, okay, we're going to get married. We're going to come together. We're going to be this perfect couple.

And maybe in many ways you are but the reality is it's you know, I was it's I'm stuttering because I'm getting in trouble. I know I'm going to get in trouble but the other person isn't perfect and you're not perfect, right? So when she catches you, you know on the couch picking your nose and everything it's like, whoa, that's not the ad. That wasn't a brochure I got about this guy.

 That's not what he meant, you know, what he showed himself out to be. And then us guys were like, we're so shallow. Like, oh, she was beautiful whenever I saw her.

Her hair was perfect and her makeup was perfect. And she just, oh, and she just cooed and giggled and everything. And then all of a sudden she's in there you know, she's all of a sudden she's a real human being.

And she sees you and you're a real human being. So all of a sudden reality kind of kicks in a little bit. Which is hilarious because when you grow up in a family, if you have brothers and sisters and stuff, you see how humans interact and everything.

And then somehow you're going to get married and that person is going to be they must be from another planet, right? Or another world, some fantasy world of some you know, if you're a guy, some goddess you put up on a pedestal and she's just perfect and wonderful and everything. And then you find out that, you know, she's as real as you are. Oh, wow.

What are you going to do? And of course, you know, in many cases for us, we think we found the perfect church. We found the perfect place to go to worship, to be with our Lord and all the people are holy and all the people are on the path to sanctity and all the people are praying and they're all doing everything right and they're just and you know, they're not human. You're looking at angels.

You think you've found a church and it's all filled with angels and all of a sudden you found like, you know, Becky Liu who was talking about Cindy, what's her face over here? And Bob is talking about Jim and Carl's talking about this other guy and all of a sudden the people aren't they're not angels. They're not to that height of perfection that of course you are and of course they look at you and they're like, what's wrong with that guy? He's wearing the weird tie and the funky socks and he's you know, he's not singing the right way. In fact, he can't sing at all.

And so you're all looking at each other. It's like you're all fallen human beings and yet we think somehow this is, once you find that perfect church home, everything's great and the priest is going to be amazing and he's going to give great sermons and he's going to say the perfect thing at the perfect time to everybody and always be there. He's super human.

And I mean, that's the brochure I got but it's, you know, it just doesn't work out that way. It's just not even humanly possible. Of course, the big one is, another big one I should say, is the perfect career for you men.

Right? You're taught, okay, I was taught that you would grow up, you'd go to school, okay, whether it was, you know, you finish high school. You know, if you went to a tech career, you know, you did a trade school or something or college or whatever, but and even if not after high school, you would get a job and you'd be making a bunch of money and you'd find the perfect woman and, right, you'd get married and live happily ever after. Well, the job part, again, I don't know about you, maybe you found the perfect career that you're passionate about and you love and what the common denominator to all this bad brochures is humanity.

Because as soon as you go to a job, what's usually the thing that that is the biggest struggle? I've probably said it before, but if there's ever a company that says to you, come join our family, we treat you like family. I mean, for me, run away quick. All right, what does that even mean? It means you, what, you have to sit up in the high chair at the end of the table? It means that, you know, you're quote-unquote big brother or big sister or you know, your boss maybe and maybe they treat you like that and they have no respect for you or you know, again, maybe you have that job.

Maybe everyone's just wonderful, everyone looks out for each other, but I've been at companies where, you know, if you're sick, they're like, are you really sick? Are you sure? I'm not sure about that. Or if you bring up projects or ideas or things to make the company better or the job better or to help people around you, you may be one of those people who like, you know, you've got the narcissistic incompetent boss or the manager and they're like, basically, sit down and shut up. We don't want to hear what you have to say.

Just do what you're told. Get it done. Give us what we want.

So I haven't had the experience of the great family career, the great family job. I've yet to go into a workplace and just be filled with passion and zeal after week, after week, after month, after month. And, you know, my issue was always that after six months or so when I knew the product, I knew the people, it was pretty boring after that.

And I learned too that there's no perfect product, there's no perfect service. I've worked for Catholic organizations. I've worked for non-profits, for profits, for you know, big companies, little companies.

And people are always the same. There are always those people, there are those who, you know, they're just there to get ahead. And you've got those people who they just want to be a boss.

They just want to boss people around. And you've got those people who are incredibly insecure and they just want to tell you what to do even though they don't know what to do or they don't know how to get results at all. In fact, one of my previous jobs, the guy was, the guy would be telling, he's like, no, we're going to do things this way.

And yet month after month after month, the numbers were bad. They were in the red, right? And they shove you in a cube and next thing you know, you're sitting there looking at this great cubicle wall. Anyway, the, um, I guess overall you're given this brochure of there's such thing as a perfect life.

There's the white picket fence, there's the cute little home, there's the wonderful children. And life, if you haven't figured out yet, it's just not like that. It's just, you know, and maybe I'm the only one who is still so wide-eyed and like, I just can't wait to have this great career and this great family and this great wonderful everything because it just, it just doesn't work out that way. 

And like I said, all the, all the fairy tale books were like happily ever after. Well, the only happily ever after is going to be once you've gone through this world and you've, you've gone through all the hoops and you've run all the races and you've gone through all the trials and you know, heaven, heaven is the happily ever after. Because when you get right down to it, you're never promised, you know, like happiness in this life. 

You've never promised a perfect life. We're told over and over through the scriptures, through just, you know, just look at life. There's suffering.

Everyone has to go through some kind of suffering. Nothing's perfect. The one thing I don't quite understand are the people who say I want to live forever and these people are like, oh, we got to figure out how to live as long as we can.

Like, why would you want to do that? You know, you watch the economy go to pot. You watch governments come there. They don't, they don't care about you.

Governments don't care about you know, you as a person. They're not, you know, and I always thought that the government would be like, oh, we're here to help you and you know, we're going to fix all the roads and we're going to take care of the economy and all you have to do is, you know, do your very best and it's the American dream and and you just find out that people just you know, the government, it just doesn't care about you. So you hold on the one thing that is happiness and that's your eternal salvation and that's the thing you're working for.

In the meantime, just laugh at life because laugh is, laugh, because life is, it really is kind of funny. It's incredibly absurd. It's incredibly stupid and it's amazing what we all really work hard to do and to get and to be when nothing is as promised, you know, all the promises of the world are just hollow.

They're ridiculously hollow. You know, all of a sudden you get the brand new car, right? How many of us guys are like, you know, we're younger. Oh, I'm gonna get this brand new beautiful car.

Okay, you get the beautiful car and you can't pay cash for it. So all of a sudden you're paying 500, 600 a month for a loan for your car. After a year, it's already getting dirty.

It's got a scratch or two and you're like, wow, you know, it's not as pretty as I thought it would be. I mean, think about anything you've purchased in your life where a year later you were just as excited to have it. It was just as beautiful as, you know, the first day you got it.

 Anywhere from a house, right? For those of us who have owned houses before, things fall apart, things break, things have to be fixed. There's tons of stuff to do. So there's no, there's no just perfection and I guess, you know, having been in marketing for decades of my life, I still fall into that trap.

I still believe the, uh, you know, the promises. And there was a saying back in marketing, it's always like you, you, gosh, and I forgot what it was. You basically under promise and over, basically you, you deliver more than you promise, okay? But a lot of times and a lot of the marketing today is they over promise and they under deliver.

I think that's the brochure we get at the very beginning of our life. You're going to have this great thing. Everything's going to be perfect.

You're going to be rich. You're going to be beautiful. You're going to have perfect health.

And you find out that's just not the case. So if you have children, give, give them the brochure of life, right? Life is going to be rough. It's going to be tough, but it's going to be great. 

It's going to be fun. And hopefully you have a smile on your face because you know where you're going. You know what the end is that where you're going in life. 

Because I think, I can't think of anything sadder than people who don't have God, who don't have a faith that says, okay, I'm going somewhere better where everything here is perfect, where they actually believe the brochure. They believe that they can have the perfect life, the perfect spouse, the perfect house, perfect job, perfect everything. So that's, that's just being disillusioned.

That's disillusioned. You know, I was disillusioned, you know, early on because I fell for that whole brochure and the marketing thing. So I guess the moral today is don't believe everything you're told.

The brochure is glossy for a reason and our happiness is in heaven in the end. So that's what the fight is all about.