Notes of Concern…
…Jack Blair
BACK TO BASICS?
Most of us have the basics: shelter in the form of a home, transportation, medical coverage, sufficient income to live on, safety, and freedom.
Many of us have more than the basics: we actually own a home, we have more than one car, we have really good medical coverage, we have more income than required to cover the “basics” and we could be referred to as “comfortable”.
Some of us live our lives with a great many more toys than we need.
Fewer of us make charitable donations than would seem appropriate given how much financial security we enjoy. We don’t share very much.
A very small minority of us prepare for that “rainy day” that always worried our parents. One of the reasons is that we haven’t seen the rainy days that came their way, so we have trouble envisioning one.
An article in another paper this week started me thinking about this. The thrust of the article was that Americans just don’t sacrifice anymore.
We always want more from the government than they are prepared to give.
We want more from the company for which we work than they are prepared to pay.
We want more channels from the cable company on our televisions; we aren’t satisfied anymore with AM/FM and want to pay for satellite radio; we don’t find one or two automobiles in our garage sufficient and hope to add a motorcycle, scooter, and a couple of bikes (mountain, dirt, etc) to our collection of “wheels”.
We want bigger, better and sexier vacations. We want our airplanes to carry 500 and have bars, sleeping quarters and maybe a fitness facility. We want our cruise ships to have ice arenas and the capability for surfing on the deck. We want our cars to play movies to keep the kids quiet on long trips. We want designer clothes, not just something from Penny’s or Sears.
This list could go on for far more space than I have in this paper today.
We live a charmed life in many ways.
Even those of us who have difficulties in our lives would find that we are still so much better off than many people in the world.
Perhaps the reader would consider cutting back a little? Donating more to others (sacrificial financial gifts or gifts of service)? Starting a “rainy day” fund? We should at least contemplate our bountiful lives and take a moment to compare them to the lives of others in places like Soweto, South Africa and Delhi, India.
As our nation loses the reputation it once enjoyed in the world and gains a growing list of enemies abroad, we need to focus on how we as a people have changed and ask ourselves if that might be the source of our new-found difficulties.
Perhaps the changes that need to be made cannot be successfully made in Washington, DC but need to occur right in our own backyard-in our own homes.
There is no reason to be ashamed for having the blessings we have in life. But it is important to keep them in perspective and to have a realistic view of the basic ingredients required to live our lives.
