Inhale, Exhale. Repeat.

Why is it so hard to live each day to the fullest? How many times has this how-to methodology been told, over and over again? If only everything was as easy to do as to say. I blame the evolution of the 21st century American lifestyle . Honestly, most of the time I love it. Need it. Crave it. Welcome to the wonderful world of being a workaholic. The problem is, most of us are out of work.

Research has shown that people on average, spends 98% of the waking time in thinking about the past or the future and only 2 % in the present. A workaholic spends 99% of the time mentally planning and thinking about the future tuning out the here and now. Thus, only 1 % of the time is divided between the present and the past. Well then, I have issue with us all.

Thinking about the future is spoken to us from birth. We fortunate Americans are taught forward-thinking as a second language. First, we must speak, crawl, walk and chew by a certain age. Second, we must recite, write, sing our abc's and read by another. Third, we systematically are unconsciously placed into little boxes securing the future of our adolescent years by membership as jocks, artists, computer geeks, mean girls or dark ones. Now it comes, the age old question, what do you want to be when you grow up? The fate of our future is not one we were meant to decide prior to being given the freedoms afforded to us centuries ago.

As American's youth we are constantly reminded about the next step. We can't wait to reach double digits, be the oldest in our school, learn how to drive, decide where to go to college or graduate. The problem is once you get there, now what. In all our 18 years, not one person has taught us to just relax. Possibly one of the many reasons the pharmaceutical industry has taken it into their hands to rectify the anxiety levels in 3 year-olds. So instead of being taught how to control our own emotions, deal with a bad day now and again, believe in the power of each and every day, we're given a tiny little pill. By the time we're allowed to vote, our pill boxes have become more important than our water bottles. In a split second we are herded off to college, forced to declare a major, once again divided into those lovely little groups, some blessed with the luxury of not quite yet learning how to budget and now again yearning for another piece of paper.

With all this preparation, ocean of knowledge, statistics on what your major can do for you in the future and decades of various reformations thrown at us, now we are all suppose to want just as we did 4 years or so ago. So go get it. Get a job, get married and have babies.

Trouble is, after years of being judged by our plans for tomorrow with carefully laid milestones along the way to keep our freewill on track, some of us just can't sleep at night. I have absolutely no clue where I am going to be in 5 years. I know where I want to be, I know what I've done to prepare myself to get there. How could I not? This logic has been edged in my mind since I opened my mouth and said "Dog", when I was suppose to say "Mommy".

When is the appropriate time to stop and smell the roses? How do you teach yourself after years of waiting for the next step to do so? Why is not okay to be single still at 30? Just who are these people who've created this path we all must follow or be shunned? Is this the American way of life? It has become wrong to be independent. Then again, it always has.

A recent study found that one in 10 Americans are depressed, and one in 30 meet the criteria for major depression, with the rate higher among the unemployed and those who can't work. Shocking. As Americans we live for our work, literally. Our stance in society depends on what we do, how much money we make and if we've taken a vacation in the past decade. Those of us with labels, Beemers and roll over vacation time are the fortunate ones.

Welcome to workaholics anonymous. Now stuck in the depression box, health care to the rescue. Now, as adults we are medically unstable because we haven't learned to feel okay with the eroding chosen path paved from birth, edged in our minds during our adolescents and molded with adulthood. It's alright, we never truly had a choice. Just ask your local doctor you now have to see to simply get your money's worth.