Invariably anyone, anywhere who lives a focused, dedicated life committed to something is confronted with this phrase. "All you do is play tennis? Every single day? Man, you need to GET A LIFE!"

But the question is: what kind of life exactly do I need to get? Should I get your life; practicing for a couple of meaningless hours a couple of meaningless times a week while leaving the majority of your time for chasing babes at the drug and alcohol parties at your friends' houses? Should I get your life; working nine to five at a dead-end job that tries to convince you otherwise by granting you varied perks and then spending your off-time traveling to exotic locales pretending that the change of scenery will change the emptiness you feel inside? Should I get your life; gathering academic degrees like a kid on a scavenger hunt while spending your summers journeying the globe in the name of becoming "richer" and more "cultured"? Or should I get your life; going to church every Sunday like you're supposed to, quoting scriptures like you're required to, condescending down to the heathens like you're taught to and cussing and drinking and sinning when you need to? Is this how it is? Is this how it should be?

What is the point of a life anyway? Is it how much you do? Is it how much you experience? If I should travel to the Grand Canyon, the Taj Mahal, the pyramids of Egypt and the White House, do I then "have a life"? If I study hard in school (leaving the requisite time for the partying, philandering and law-breaking that my parents don't know about, of course), finish near the top of my class, go on scholarship to a "good school" ("My little Susie gets straight A's. She's going to a good school!"), and then follow that up with a tasty graduate school that then allows me to get a good job that gets me out from behind the desk and lets me see the world, do I then have a life? If I do all that, will I stop waking in the middle of the night wondering what is the purpose of all of this? Will I then be able to stop trying so desperately to find the next, great, distracting event because I hate it when it's quiet and I'm by myself with nothing to do?

The problem today in society and everyday lives everywhere is that people actually believe this phrase. People really do thin...

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