The world is still good

In many ways, since I was a child, I have found that as I got older, many aspects of life seemed to get worse. I remember very, very little crime on my island. I remember feeling very safe to play outside.
The economic downturn has made me look at what has been good about the world, and the sense of entitlement that most of us feel. Thinking differently has met us and we cannot turn back to old ways anymore.
What would have happened if most of us were happy with the first cellphone model, or the first computer? Naturally we all want to do better, look better, get better. No one can put the Genie back in the bottle. But I could not help but wonder about the things that one thinks is needed to have a good life.
When I was in my twenties, I made a list of the things that I would need to have my own home. If I made a list of twenty things, eighteen of them were appliances and high technology. I remember being quite stunned about that.
I remember looking at the list and finding it very unfortunate that after a bed, chairs,stove, everything else looked like things you could not do without...yet once, obviously, we did do without.
I think that it was then that I began to look at all of the consumer things that we all feel we just must have! We must have them, now!
This year I looked at my own money, realising more acutely that you must put a price on how much you spend in a month, months and a year. Then you look at it all over again in another year. You find yourself spending much more than you realise, and you feel bad when you decide not to buy that magazine, but you go ahead and buy the dress.
Also, you can spend your money much faster then you can make it last, if you do not become cognizant that.
But as I stated before, I have been looking at life a bit differently lately. You want certain things, and ultimately you want to be happy.
But you know that being happy isn't necessarily about money. It is giving my little one a piggy back, or walking with her in the garden. That makes me very happy.
Happy is knowing that I can have a lovely house, but filling it with the laughter of friends makes it a home.
So much happiness gets compromised because of all the work to get the time to 'be' happy.
When do we finally get off the treadmill?
What do we really want?
Do we even understand it when we get it?
This was my problem with my ex-husband. I found that he never seemed to exhale and be happy. he was always finding something worthy of delaying satisfaction for. He claimed that he was happy, until that fateful day when he finally looked at me and said that he was unhappy.
I look at people in their cars, and walking with their children or lovers, and what is this world? What is this life? So much of it is routine and what do we really think we feel, or want to feel?
What is happiness when that day lasts and lasts for more than a few hours?
I want to come back to this thought again very soon. I have much more to say, but for now, I shall end here.