When I arrived in China, I was happy to discover that I could buy Oreo cookies. I carried them in my backpack everywhere I went. On many occasions, I shared them with my students. The response was always the same: they would break the cookie into two or three pieces and savor each bite. Sometimes they would save a piece for later in the day. Rarely would they accept a second cookie.
I was in MacDonald's the other day. The napkin-holder had a sign: "Take only what you need!". I watched several customers take inch-thick stacks of napkins to their seat.
I'm spending Labor Day weekend camping with friends. The restroom has a towel dispenser that releases one towel at a time. I noticed several men who pulled out six or eight towels, wadded them up and tossed them into the garbage.
Our children's eye's light up at the sight of a can of pop; they take a few sips and then wander away, forgetting all about it. After all, they know there's plenty more where that came from.
Ours is a culture of surplus. We live in a world of abundance. The value of conserving has been replaced with the value of consuming.
It's the inevitable result of living in a developed (affluent) nation.
It wasn't always this way. Some of us were taught: "Only use two or three sheets of TP." Anybody remember this one: "Waste not - want not"? Remember getting two cents for returning a pop bottle? [In some states, maybe you still do.] How many of you grew up wearing hand-me-downs?
Wealth has changed us!
Adjusting our attitudes and developing a lifestyle of conserving and restraint would be countercultural and would have to be intentional. You would be in the minority. But, you would have the self-satisfaction of knowing that you are bucking a flagrant trend in our culture.
The greatest challenge (and opportunity) comes for those who are still parenting 'at-home' children! You have the amazing capacity of teaching your children through your words and your modeling! You can truly make a generational difference.
Learning to appreciate what we have is a great goal! Deliberately practicing restraint has its own internal rewards!
I often wonder when I hear messages such as this...what is the endgame? What is the acceptable level of affluence? Would they wish to see developed nations drop to the level of undeveloped so that everyone is miserable and in need? Do they believe the 20th/21st century U.S. invented wealth? I'm not advocating waste, but who decides how much is enough and how much is too much?
ReplyDeleteGood questions. I am not usually prescriptive in my blog articles. I am often just out to get people to think. I simply made an observation as a result of living in a developing nation for three years. I am presently experiencing the shock of returning to this culture. Consequently, I see things differently than I did before. I shared those observations not with the intention of producing guilt or conviction, but with the hope of broadening people's perspective and initiating self-evaluation. If I did that in you - then I succeeded. Discerning an "acceptable level of affluence" is a uniquely American problem. I believe it is an individual issue that we resolve in accord with our personal value system. Good luck to you in this process; I hope you find a joyful and peaceful resolution.
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