This weeks reading were all very interesting and controversial. My favorite quote from the text on p.11 was "Most American have everything they could possibly want, and they still don't think it's nearly enough. When everything is at hand, nothing is ever hard-won, and when nothing is hard-won, nothing really satisfies. Without satisfaction, out lives become shallow and meaningless."
I found this cartoon that I think does an amazing job of explaining this quote:
I think it is true that we focus way to much on material goods bringing us happiness. As a result we are never truly happy because no one can ever have everything. Our lives are sheltered and slightly meaningless when we let material items and money and greed rule our lives.
The reason this problem arises is because the United States is a country of constant "one up" culture, every person has to have the best material items so they can go up to someone in the neighborhood and say "I have a 65 inch TV" and while his neighbor says back "I remember my first TV, I have a 70 inch with surround sound" so that man goes out and buys a 75 inch with 3D effects until their houses are both worship centers for technology.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you and Matt. Most people only care about having the newest, shiniest, most awe-inspiring material things. My boyfriend is a good example of that. He always has to have the newest game. He plays it for a bit, gets bored with it, and sells it a week later for a 1/3rd of the price he bought it for. Then he goes out and buys another one. We spend our money like it's water because we think it'll make us happier. But then we get addicted to the feeling we get when we buy something new. We need to learn how to find happiness in other things that don't involve blowing an entire paycheck. Go spend time with your family, read a book, dance in the rain. Anything will do. If we can find these kinds of things to make us happy then we know that we haven't truly fallen into a perpetual cycle of buying.
ReplyDeleteI believe Megan hit the nail on the head in terms of people trying to find happiness in materialistic items and money. Today, I think people look for happiness in a 60” flat screen television, rather than trying to find true happiness, like spending time with the ones you love. I think the worst part about this statement is that it is true, and we are all guilty of it in some way, shape, or form. It’s not totally our faults; however, we have yet again let society transform us into this economic scandal of buying happiness. My parents have told me since I was young, “You can’t buy happiness.” Is this statement true anymore?
ReplyDeleteI do agree that the majority of people do care alot about material items but my thoughts on that is what is all that stuff if you don't have friends or family to share it with? Of course people are going to want the newest technology but that's because without it it is hard to function as a citizen in our society. I am not saying you need to have all the material items in order to survive but if you really think about it without your cell phone,tv, laptop, ipod wouldn't life in the American society be much harder to function in?
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