Are you content with your life? Are you happy with the way things are? Now I know there are always improvements that can be made, and I am not talking about that, but what I am asking is, if nothing was to ever change in your life again, would you be content with your life?
We live in a world where no one is content or happy with anything in their life. They want the next and best car, phone, computer, or big screen TV. The marketing machines that move, are always compelling us and pushing us toward the next and better one. You can't live without this one. You have to have it. What is everyone going to think of you?
Now I'm all in favor of the free enterprise system. It's the best system on the planet. It keeps our economy strong, and the competition always makes for good solid products. But the one thing that can bring it all down is greed, and we sure have plenty of that to go around these days, not only in both the corporate and government sectors, but also each and every one of us. Yes we Americans are greedy and we show it for the entire world to see.
We are entering into one of the biggest greed showing seasons...Christmas. Now I know that Christmas is pretty much a worldwide event, and there are plenty of other countries that get into the shopping, spending, and buying of Christmas mode, but I'm concentrating my thoughts on us who live in the U.S.
Our lack of contentment is what drives our economy. Companies play on this and get us to try and out buy each other. Every year we have to have the new thing that just came out. We buy it with money that we don't have. We finance it from credit cards that charge us exorbitant rates, and we end up paying ten times more for it than it really is worth.
If you're discontent, then, you my friend are not happy, and if you aren't happy, what makes you think that a new gadget, that's going to put you in debt, will make you happy? It might deliver a false happiness that might last for a while, but when you see those bills coming in, it will vanish just as fast as it came, and will be replaced with anguish and despair.
I think this struggling economy will and should all help us to see that, things and gadgets don't bring happiness and contentment, people do. Maybe it's good that we can't buy all that stuff. Lets learn to do things for each other instead of buying each other.
I remember my parents and my grand-parents used to tell me about the great depression, "everybody was in the same boat, they would say.