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As I, like some of the rest of you, have watched the US scramble to dig itself out from mountains of debt I began wondering how we got ourselves into this fix. "America, the land of opportunity!" Aren't we a great nation at least in part because someone with a few resources can come here and buy a 5,000 square-foot home and a Hummer? Isn't that what every Ethiopian longs for? Doesn't the rest of the world want to be like us? Isn't this was would make everyone happy?
Okay, okay! So I got carried away, but this got me to thinking - Do Americans get some kind of thrill or excitement out of spending money? I mean, part of our economic downturn is from higher prices and lost jobs but really, I believe some of the problem is just due to folks spending too much money to get something more than they need. I look around my own town and wonder if they folks really needed 5,000 square feet and a Cadillac Escalade (plus the two other cars). Is this just an American or Western Phenomenon or do we see this kind of thing elsewhere? About this time my wife saw a talk show about "How to Affair-Proof your marriage." This expert, a man, suggested that couples can do many things to assure that their marriages last but among them was that the wife should take conscious steps to be sure that her husband is .... Well, um .... gratified with pleasure on a frequent basis. (What guy is going to argue with that?) I can hear it now, "Okay Dear, you better take care of me tonight or I might start thinking that Barbara in the next office over is pretty hot." Really! C'mon! Didn't the guy commit to this thing too? Richer or Poorer, Better or Worse, Sickness and Health. Wasn't he there for that part? Sorry, I digress.
So my question is, do we seek more stuff or more ... pleasure trying to find happiness (or satisfaction or contentment)? Our forefathers told us to, "never settle for second best" or "don't be satisfied with anything less than winning" or "if your basic needs aren't being met you'll never be happy." Have we decided that our "basic needs" are faster cars, bigger TVs, livelier church services, phones in our ears, internet on our fingertips and FS games that are so realistic you can find the Baalbeck ruins out in the Beka'a Valley? We think we need our wives to ... you know, please us, what - four, five, six times a week at least? I mean, FSX has completely rebuilt the ground textures and here we are complaining that either something is missing or our PC can't run it. So we have to go out and buy a new PC - yet we can't even make the house payments! We spend too much, we eat too much, we watch too much TV ... Are we really like that? No wonder people think Americans are crazy!
Well this theory wasn't acceptable, I had to have a better answer. So I e-mailed about two dozen of you guys from every continent to ask if this disease was isolated to just the good ol' US of A. What I heard back was interesting and educational.
From the UK: "This begs the question whether those in question will "settle" for what they have, either because they have "most" of what they want or because they realize that sky-high aspirations are not realistic."
Yes, so then, are Americans less likely to "settle" because we think we can always have or get more?
From Colombia: "In my situation we have an apartment which is quite small but in a very good neighborhood. It is twenty years old, but I already paid for it so we do not have any debt with the bank. And it gives us some peace of mind, we can take a bank credit to buy a better one, but we decided that there is no need for it. We are OK here, and we have no kids, just my wife and me, so we do not need more space. We have an old Subaru (7 years old) which we keep in perfect condition, like new, and I already paid for it. If a money crisis should come, we have no debt, only our money and a few expenses."
Ah Ha! So it IS just an American thing! Did you hear him say that he didn't need more space? No 5,000 square foot home there - yet he is happy!
From Australia: "Anyone who spends their lives chasing satisfaction or happiness from the possession of new and better products is doomed to living on an endless treadmill of dissatisfaction. The happiness you derive from a new sofa / fridge / car is only short term. The same goes for hobbies: Parasailing or white water canoeing are fun but fleeting distractions. Real happiness is what you get when you do something useful for someone else. The returns on that kind of investment last a lifetime."
Oooooh! Wise advice from Down Under.
From Germany: "My son looks to his friends and sees they have all this stuff, iPods, their own TVs, big houses with pools, their fathers drive new Mercedes or BMW cars and they travel on holidays during every school vacation. Now my son wants that iPod and the 400-dollar mobile phone. The truth is rising energy costs, food and utility prices eat up the middle class salaries and reserves. We do begin to wonder how to pay for the next holidays and the kids' music lessons. The house debts eat up a major fraction of the income, thank God that interests are long-term fixed and crisis safe ..."
Oh, well, that sounds pretty much like my house too. Maybe we aren't the only ones overspending our accounts or trying to live faster lives.
From Italy: "The problem in the satisfaction you talk about is when everyone thinks that happiness is shaped as a spiffy BMW 530, but when they reached for it, damn, happiness changed form and is now incarnated as a Porsche Carrera. Everyone is subject to this, we're humans. LCD TV's in HDMI flavor, the latest iPod, the newest cell phone with tons of applications and ring tones, the BluRay player...everything seems to be absolutely necessary to live happily. Nevertheless we aren't that happy....we strive for something better all the time, and our striving has a tremendous cost, a burden on someone else's shoulders. I'm trying to lower my expectations. I don't lose my wish for better things, because this kind of wish isn't a bad thing.....It only becomes a bad thing when it's the only focus you have...you keep wishing and forget to enjoy. And I apply this even to everyday life.....we should slow down a bit, really."
Yep, Americans could stand to slow down I'd say. I'm thinking about this whole slowing down thing as I ride my bike past no less than seven Starbuck's Coffee stands on my way into work. Lines of cars spending five bucks to get a two-hour buzz!
From New York: "I am very satisfied to have a home, a place which covers my head when it rains and keeps me warm/cool as appropriate. When I do the yard, rake and cut the lawn etc., I get a feeling of gratification not only because that obligatory job is done for the week, but because it makes the place look nice. It feels good having put in the sweat it takes to accomplish this. Were I to come into a great deal of money, or perhaps a perpetual source of income, I do not believe my level of satisfaction would be enhanced by a newer or bigger house. My satisfaction/gratification is generated internally, and is independent of material trappings. The work I do on the house is what feels good.
Similarly in FS When I see a review ... I'll drive myself nuts until I get the damn thing. Purchasing the add-on is very gratifying. But, I get a great deal of satisfaction when I've been able to manipulate the program to do what I wish it to do, whether it is an improvement in mesh/scenery, FPS or whatever. It is in the bending of the software/hardware to my will - completing a flight or finding a way to add a cargo door button to a PMDG panel and then watching it work in another flight - that is where the satisfaction comes in."
So in this case, happiness is his own perception?
From Ohio: "The only time I am satisfied is after an outstanding meal, be it prepared by my wife or in some restaurant. I have no desire especially to be either satisfied or gratified and never even think about it - my objective is to be happy. Whenever a person is no longer interested in improving themselves or their lot, they must be dead, wherever they may live."
Practical Mid-Westerners. Damn!
Another German guy: "A little article comes to my mind. It was about an inquiry, how happy people in different countries feel. The people of Bangladesh were #1 although they are very poor. It seems that they don't give much thought about tomorrow. If they are happy now they enjoy it and don't think about what might happen tomorrow. Maybe that's a good key for happiness. Makes me think of myself and how hard I find it to relax my mind if there is an uncertain financial future. These days I was wondering how much of my satisfaction or better say feeling of safety and being relaxed depends on my bank account. Especially as a Christian, there should be more trust in God than in money."
From Brazil: "Taking this reasoning to another area, empires have appeared and disappeared in the world constantly. It used to be said, before the second world war, that the 'sun never sets on the British Empire'. After that the USA became the super power, and now with this financial chaos, that the whole world seems to be coming to, we see that each time, these empires last less and less time. It's as though we are making a trip in a space shuttle called earth. It is up to each one of us to make the best possible of our short trip."
Conclusions? It seems that Americans aren't the only one's that need to slow down and smell the flowers a bit - in fact, some of the Americans had the best advice, "choose to be happy." I thought of the following story from my own work:
Charles has pretty severe or advanced Parkinson's Disease. I'll ask him how many times he falls down. "On normal days about once a day, on a really good day I won't fall at all but on my golfing days I fall about twenty times. My friends just all pick me up and we go on." I suggest that falling is dangerous and he might need to find a new hobby. "If I stop golfing I'll die and I'm not planning on doing that until my last granddaughter is through High School - she's eight right now." Okay, so ten more years of golf even if he breaks his hip or tears out his shoulder, he has a goal in life. I ask him, "Rate for me Charles your overall QUALITY of LIFE." (How satisfied are you right now, considering all the medications and the falling and the difficulty with Parkinson's etc.). His answer is always the same, "TEN!"
As Ohio has said, being satisfied comes from within. Ohio and Charles and Colombia have made choices to be satisfied - not stagnant and stale but satisfied, with what they have or what they can (really) get. This may be inborn or bred or taught but I think this is at the heart of what Australia said early on, it's not what you have or want it's what you do with what you have. Whether you fly with FS2000, FS2002, FS2004 or whatever, you can moan about how things aren't right or you can be happy just to have a functional sim.
Ron Blehm
pretendpilot@yahoo.com
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