Life's road...our choices; our wisdom; our weakness...
In the seventies, Malcolm Fraser, a former Australian Prime Minister said to the Australian people “Life isn’t meant to be easy.”
I do not agree with this saying. I say, LIFE is meant and should be easy.
It is the environment people are born into which lets or makes them forget that life should or could be easy. Materialism has taken the number 1 place in peoples life, to strife for. Advertisements are thrown at them day and night to buy this and that product like every ones life would depend on it.
That’s why life is a hard task, pleasures have to be bought, mind you most of the time this pleasure is very short lived and something new must replace it. This is the elusive perpetum mobile. Is it so important to drive the right car, to live in an appropriate area, to send the children to the right schools, to wear and drive status symbols, this makes life very hard.
Do I care if your T-shirt comes from some designer or from the next op-shop. Not at all I could not care less! Why do you want to pay for a silly designer name with your hard earned money, to fill his bank account, instead of keeping the money in yours and perhaps in time it will pay for a nice relaxing holiday! In this process of perpetual buying people have to work harder and harder.
Less materialism would mean less factories less stress on nature and people.The question is do people want less materialism. Perhaps we have arrived at the point of no return. The road we have chosen is wanting more and more, pointing towards buying and more buying of the latest gadgets, like the latest mobile telephone, the latest I Pad etc.etc.though the one from last month is still working and doesn't need to be replaced.
Unless the newest ones, can be used to clean your teeth and grill your sandwiches!
There was a time when people could buy only when they had the cash. I was brought up this way and it is still my way.
In simple terms explained how the change came about;
At a certain time the bankers came together and said people do not use enough money. We could make a mint if we implement credit cards so people use more money which we can lend to them.
The bank card was introduced and people had a fine time in buying what ever they wanted. More goods were produced; globalisation set in, goods were produced in countries were cheap human resources were available.
Now after perhaps 40 years of spending money that was never earned, the natural end arrived in the collapse of the economies. Banks were in dire straits and now came the payback. People’s tax money bailed out the bankers and the people are sitting on a pile of rubbish they have accumulated over the years, with cut wages, cut social services, cut retirement money and to the extreme with the loss of their homes and no jobs.
The banks CEO still sits comfortably in his leather chair on the phone with a Saville Row tailor for a new silk suit and handmade shoes.
©Photo/text Ts
That’s why life is a hard task, pleasures have to be bought, mind you most of the time this pleasure is very short lived and something new must replace it. This is the elusive perpetum mobile. Is it so important to drive the right car, to live in an appropriate area, to send the children to the right schools, to wear and drive status symbols, this makes life very hard.
Do I care if your T-shirt comes from some designer or from the next op-shop. Not at all I could not care less! Why do you want to pay for a silly designer name with your hard earned money, to fill his bank account, instead of keeping the money in yours and perhaps in time it will pay for a nice relaxing holiday! In this process of perpetual buying people have to work harder and harder.
Less materialism would mean less factories less stress on nature and people.The question is do people want less materialism. Perhaps we have arrived at the point of no return. The road we have chosen is wanting more and more, pointing towards buying and more buying of the latest gadgets, like the latest mobile telephone, the latest I Pad etc.etc.though the one from last month is still working and doesn't need to be replaced.
Unless the newest ones, can be used to clean your teeth and grill your sandwiches!
There was a time when people could buy only when they had the cash. I was brought up this way and it is still my way.
In simple terms explained how the change came about;
At a certain time the bankers came together and said people do not use enough money. We could make a mint if we implement credit cards so people use more money which we can lend to them.
The bank card was introduced and people had a fine time in buying what ever they wanted. More goods were produced; globalisation set in, goods were produced in countries were cheap human resources were available.
Now after perhaps 40 years of spending money that was never earned, the natural end arrived in the collapse of the economies. Banks were in dire straits and now came the payback. People’s tax money bailed out the bankers and the people are sitting on a pile of rubbish they have accumulated over the years, with cut wages, cut social services, cut retirement money and to the extreme with the loss of their homes and no jobs.
The banks CEO still sits comfortably in his leather chair on the phone with a Saville Row tailor for a new silk suit and handmade shoes.
©Photo/text Ts
