Why do we measure a country's progress by the sheer volume of stuff it produces and consumes? It's like we've all caught the 'buy, buy, buy' bug, constantly fixated on our next shopping spree, without realizing that every shiny new product we grab leaves a toxic trail that'll linger for three centuries! That's right, your great-great-grandkids will still be dealing with the consequences of your retail therapy.
So, here's a head-scratcher: Shouldn't we be using a different metric to gauge a nation's or a person's success? How about we ditch the 'more is more' philosophy and start measuring the creativity involved in living happily with minimal products, and mindfulness in our daily lives?
Meanwhile, big corporations are out there hiring brainiacs to brainstorm how to get us all addicted to their products, convincing us that more stuff equals a richer life. They even swung by our university, where the air is practically charged with the expectation of innovation. The very students who are meant to steer the ship toward a brighter future are being tempted by fat paychecks to work on someone else's materialistic dream to make people material rich and zero on the real life we are meant to live.
Ever wonder why ants have a more developed civilization than ours? They don't spend 30 years paying off a house they can barely call their own (hello, home loans).
Some of us are content with keeping the poverty cycle churning, helping build castles on the backs of the less fortunate, all while using currency, which is basically just a fancy IOU note. We're crafting personal kingdoms for some already million-dollar-in-account owners that do nothing for society at large. And yet, when placement season rolls around, most of us will happily queue up for jobs under these self-made monarchs.
It's mind-boggling, really. The human species, when it comes to living standards seems to be more diverse than the species' of the jungle. Bravo, humanity, you've certainly thrown us all for a loop!
Because materialism is what keeps you working, driving to work to pay for the gas to get to work to pay the taxman, paying the bank for a home that may never become yours, and the fancy days off or luncheons to compensate for your grind, please know ‘The most amazing things in life are the thing you do, not the things you have.’
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