As the recent Parade magazine article Do We Have Too Many Choices stated, "In the last 30 years...the proportion of the population describing itself as 'very happy' has declined."  Despite all the modern conveniences and dramatic medical breakthroughs, there still isn't enough to make us happy.  The article continues, "Depression in the year 2000 was about 10 times as likely as it was in 1900."

I'm convinced that a large part of our perceived unhappiness is paradoxically related to improved communication.  Even though we often see squalor and suffering in far away places, we are more apt to compare ourselves to that person living in shameless luxury in Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

Funny how human nature works.  Too often we take for granted our current relatively affluent lifestyles, which the vast majority of the earth's inhabitants would consider a dramatic improvement from their current lot in life.

Yet we still long for more, for better, for something that has been elusive, that we just can't live without.  

And this pattern begins early in our lives.  Interspersed with the Saturday morning cartoons are commercials for must-have toys, state of the art computer games, and the latest breakfast cereals which suggest and nurture these "necessities" as the bare minimum, survival-level existence.  

By the time kids become teenagers, they need that diminutive high-tech cell phone with the built in camera and the latest designer clothes so they're not scarred with embarrassment when they're with their peers.

And it's not just the kids that feel this way.  Thanks to Madison Avenue's pervasive and relentless advertising, we've come to believe that we just have to have that new Lexus and that we don't really love our wives unless we're able to shower them with diamonds.  Why should we expect the younger generations to be any different?

I realize that I'm starting to sound a bit like one of Andy Rooney's tirades on 60 minutes. And perhaps it is part of the aging process that allows us to finally sit back and see that that all that we've accumulated over the years is, for the most part, just "stuff".  As I discussed in last month's article, Far-reaching Benefits of Clearing Out Clutter , we eventually (hopefully) come to recognize and appreciate more of what's really important in our lives and assign a new significance to some of the non-tangible blessings we have.

The popular mantra of the 80's and 90's, "He who dies with the most toys wins" is almost certainly an empty, all-consuming, impossible-to-fulfill goal. 

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