Land of the Free?

            What else do Americans love?  They seem to do a lot of eating!  This is another path they take differently than other countries.  For instance, Europeans are know to create large elaborate meals at home.  When they dine out their experience leaves a lot to be desired in America.  Americans eat out so often that fast food chains are on every town corner, and there’s two more across the street.  Notice that it is fast food though.  They have to get it real quick, so they can get back to work.  This food is also conveniently picked up for supper on the way home from work so the family can enjoy some semblance of family togetherness before heading out to the movie, a ballgame, endless music lessons and whatever else consumes the time of working Americans.  This contributes to the endless cycle of family neglect and materialism.

            Preoccupation with their neighbor’s toys is another problem created by the materialistic way of life coming to dominate the American way of life.  Oftentimes unable to honestly keep up the Joneses, people are plunged into a life of crime.  Stealing is a common problem in the United States.  Stealing for the actual item stolen is only partially to blame.  More often, items are taken to sell and amass with the other “hot” items they have accumulated in order to buy bigger dollar items such as drugs, which bring the big money.  Thus, a cycle of steal and sell is kept up in order to keep up a lifestyle for that a person has come to expect.  While stealing does occur in other countries, it doesn’t seem to hit the lives of middle and upper class people like it does in America.  People are just not content being thought less that their neighbors, so they will go to any extreme to keep up the “ideal image.”

            Unfortunately, children are watching and learning from their parents.  Materialism has come to be a way of life.  Each generation has seemed to get progressively worse, as each feels the need to be better that that which has come before.  Until each individual comes to value family and humanity, life in America will probably continue in the vicious cycle currently in effect.  More importantly, our children need to be shown to care for the less fortunate in their own neighborhood.  A little less interest in the goods of their neighbors and more in their welfare could alleviate a lot of selfishness and materialism that consumes a lot of time, needlessly.  Only a nation free from materialism and greed replaced with love and kindness can truly boast FREEDOM.