"I just bought this really cool phone that can download movies and songs directly from the Internet…I don’t even have to attach it to the computer or anything. Just like this…zap! The whole movie. Isn’t this, like, the coolest thing since the invention of the wheel or something?" gushed my friend shoving her new phone into my face.
I smile politely. Oh, yes, I am a little green that I don’t have such a gadgety phone to boast about but then again, it just seems to confirm a basic principle that I live by all this time. I believe in technology but only when technology serves to make life better for me and it makes me happier. It seems that my friend is happier about showing it off than about being able to download and watch movies on her mobile phone. I can do the same thing with my four-year-back model PDA but I don’t. Never done it…probably never will.
It’s the strangest phenomenon for me because our society has become so materialistic that many people’s goals have changed from ‘world peace’ or ‘hungerless world’ and ‘happiness for all children’ to ‘more money’, ‘bigger house’, ‘posher car’, ‘another piece of land’ or simply ‘a new rice cooker that I don’t need’. The goals of human beings have warped into such an incredibly materialistic form that I think, in a certain way, we have lost our sense of direction. People chase money in and out of every door of opportunity; and whenever they pursue something, the ultimate goal is material gain.
This is not to say that I am against ‘earning our keep’ in this world because we, ultimately, need money to survive. And to a certain extent, we need money to be happy but we don’t need truckloads to be happy. It saddens me that the young of today are motivated to work because of financial gain. They wake up every morning with dollar signs flashing in their eyes and swimming in their heads. There’s absolutely no life at work beyond earning more money to finance more flashy things that could ‘enhance’ their existence on earth.
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