Living in a world where Superman exists would be a pretty cool thing. You’d know for a fact that humans aren’t the only intelligent life in the universe. You’d know that almost any problem in the world can be solved by one god-like entity and his incredible cornucopia of powers. You’d know that stories of God’s existing for millennia could be a possibly true story because you’ve seen the news footage of a god made corporeal saving the world. But what about the other side of the coin? What about looking at it from Superman’s perspective? If you stop to think about it for a few minutes, being Superman would be the greatest, most thankless, depressing thing anyone could do.

He Can’t Take a Crap in Peace

No matter how fast he can fly, Superman can’t be everywhere that might need him. When he’s not busy wearing his underwear on the outside of his pants, he pretends really hard to be a regular dude. Superman may not have to pay rent at the Fortress of Solitude, but Clark Kent has to keep up the appearance of being human. This means he has to keep a job, pay rent and taxes, do his laundry, take a shit and all of those pesky things that we humans do on a day to day basis. Kal-El can’t be Superman 24x7 no matter how much he might want, or the human race might need him, to be.

What time zone does Superman operate in? If there’s a pressing catastrophe at breakfast time Kuala Lampur, it’s 3:30am in Metropolis. Is Superman supposed to jump out of bed in his “biggest boy-scout on the planet” boxers and race halfway around the globe? What happens if he’s working on a tight deadline in Metropolis and there’s a plane crash in California? Is he really supposed to stop taking a shower to super speed across town and put out a fire? Realistically speaking there’s no way he can be everywhere the world expects him to be.

He Can’t Punch the World’s Problems

Super powers are pretty fucking awesome, as long as you’re facing a super-villain-level problem. Braniac shows up to harvest humanity and turn their meatier bits into tasty slushies? Yeah, Superman can punch the shit out of that. But supervillain problems don’t happen all the time. If we take Man of Steel as gospel, then a Supervillain problem pops up about once every 33 years. In the meantime, there are a billion other problems on earth that he simply can’t (or won’t) do shit about. Where, exactly, do you punch famine? How do you use laser eyes on Ebola? What are the potentially terrifying outcomes of freezing a tsunami with his ice breath?

Superman has also committed himself to not being an invincible dictator. He doesn’t interfere in the governments of the world. He could end the threat of ISIS in a heartbeat, but his ideals prevent him from doing it because the minute he starts making those kinds of decisions is the minute that he puts himself in charge of the direction of humanity. Once he crosses that threshold, he’s nothing more than the bad guys that he tries to stop. So he just has to sit there, omnipotently powerful but impotently restricted and unable to help some of those who might need it the most.

Some Assholes are Never Happy with What He Does

The people that Superman saves from disaster are always and forever going to be singing his praises. They found themselves in a situation beyond their ability to fix and out of the sky came a bright blue and red flash of hope. But what about those that he can’t, or won’t, save? The oppressed people ruled over by a maniacal dictator know for a fact that there is a man who bullets can’t hurt. Who can crush a tank like most people crush a soda can. Whose exploits are so legendary that they are constantly on the verge of becoming mythical in nature. And he’s about as present in their war-torn town made of suffering as a condom in the Duggar house.

Superman’s inability, or often refusal, to save everyone who needs it would create a very real and tangible divide between the haves and have nots. The haves are blessed with a god-like being who will get their cat out of a tree or rescue their crashing spaceship. The have nots will suffer and die—sometimes just because god needed a nap. It’s entirely possible that entire cults would pop up centered around the simple idea of hating him. You think the comments section of YouTube is bad? Imagine if it formed into a religion, and their devil was you.

He’s The Scariest Illegal Alien EVER!

Though he never acsribes himself as the savior of a particular country, he has certainly helped some if they have asked him and it doesn’t place him in a position of altering the scope of world politics. But behind the scenes all of those governments that have come to rely on him in their time of need are going to be developing contingencies for what to do if he goes rogue and they have to kill Superman. If the Cold War generated one of the largest arms race in the history of mankind, what would it look like to prepare to fight a Superhero?

Think about how much American taxpayer money was spent on Airport security following 9-11. Body scanners, an army of security at every airport, pat downs; all of this because of a few regular humans went off the deep end and did something that no one could conceive of happening. Now think about what steps just the United States, let alone the rest of the world, would take if there was a bullet proof demigod flying around and not reporting to any sovereign nation.

Dude Can’t Even Take a Vacation

So you’re the savior of the planet that you live on. The whole world literally expects you to save them from any and everything that can go wrong. Half the world loves you and half the world hates you. You walk a razor’s edge of trying to be a hero and trying to be a regular guy. Your boss is getting suspicious about all the times you have to run off in the middle of the day. At some point in time it just gets to be too much and you need to unplug. Well good fucking luck with that.

In recent studies, it's been shown that Americans take fewer vacation days than the rest of the world, and the biggest reason why is because the work will just pile up for when they get back. What kind of disaster would be facing Clark Kent if he took a week off and got shitfaced in the Bahamas? What kind of damage could Lex Luthor do in just seven days of Superman-Free time? If you think your job is high stress and low pay, just imagine what hell Superman's inbox looks like after a carefree week.

Of course there's always outsourcing