My Life is a Ponzi Scheme

I have more skill at getting myself into things than getting out of them.  “I’m just a girl who cain’t say no.”  I have way more obligations (and opportunities , I guess) in my life than anyone can possibly do.

There is only so much time in my day.  So I borrow from Patricia to pay Pauline.  I take time from something I should be doing right now, in order to finish things that should have been finished already.  My life is a pyramid scheme.  A ponzi scheme.

Charles Ponzi was an Italian-Bostonian who went from penniless to millionaire in six months in 1920, by supposedly exchanging Italian postal return certificates.  Instead of trading anything, he paid off the first few investors with the investments of subsequent investors.  And he lived poshly on the remaining money, which people apparently threw at him. “Smithers, I’ve discovered the perfect business: people swarm in, empty their pockets, and scuttle off.”

The pyramid scheme is actually encouraged by my employer.  And yours, and everyone else’s, I suspect.  They have a strong interest in your overcommitment; you have to keep coming in every day (and more than a few nights, for free!) to keep up.  But even putting in extra time, the hurrier I go, the behinder I get.

It is wearing thin.  I think about trying deflate the bubble without getting killed in the explosion.  One strategy is to keep the pyramids small by changing jobs before they get too big.  The pyramids still get built, but there is much less likely to be a crowd with pitchforks and firebrands for smallish collapses than for large ones.  “Bring me the head of Bernie Madoff!”

So I’ll probably go on building and maintaining pyramids.  Pyramids at home, at work, at church.  A veritable megalopolis of pyramids!  I’ll be a pyramid slum-lord!

On the plus side, my reward could be immortality.  As the old saw says, "God put me on earth to accomplish a certain amount of things.  Right now, I'm so far behind, I can never die!"