Saturday, July 29, 2006

An embarrassment of riches

I was watching Oprah on Friday and it really made me think. The show was on the plight of people that work low wage jobs. It was amazing how hard these people work and yet how hard it is for them to get ahead.

Sometimes it is easy to not realize how good you have it. My husband is always feeling bad because he is not providing more money for the family. This is a crazy thing to get depressed about because we have so much. We are thrifty people so we have plenty of things with money to spare. I think the only item that we are really missing is a home of our own. The crazy price of housing has put that one thing out of our range. We could actually probably buy one but we would be far too over extended financially.

The media really seems to try hard to make people unhappy with what they have. There is so much advertising out there telling us that we must buy this and we will be happy. Get this because you deserve it. Even the great state of California operates through deficit spending. Every election there is one bond measure or another encouraging us to spend money that we do not have for this or that program.

Sometimes I get so frustrated with the irresponsibility of others. It is frustrating to see others blowing money like there is no tomorrow and seemingly not having any true consequences. Here we sit with all our investments, with our savings account and all the scrimping that we do. Sometimes I think about just going out and blowing it all on something fun. It would be easy but then I would regret it later on.

I am thankful for show that help me realize how lucky I am. I have a great family, a roof over my head, more food than I can eat. We also do not have to live from pay check to pay check worrying about what would happen if one of us got sick.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I could not agree more with your post! It is very easy to forget to appreciate what we have when we look out into the world.

We do not have a home of our own yet either. We are on the move, and income is not ideal. However, we are having fun and so lucky to have each other...happy, healthy!

Always nice to have a reminder!

Nancy Evans said...

Plus your kids have over-indulgent grandparents who believe grandkids NEVER have enough toys or clothes!

Unknown said...

I had the same thoughts after watching Oprah's show. It's funny because no matter how much you make, society is set up to have us always wanting more. Lately, I'm just grateful my husband has a great job and an air-conditioned house to call home!!

Lana said...

I didn't see Oprah but I agree with you 100%. There's a saying I like "you can never have enough of what you don't need". I think that's profound. We need to be grateful for the things we have and not have our eye always on what we don't. We probably don't NEED it anyway!