Are we the most spoilt generation ever? We have been told we deserve the best in life – and we’re living by that mantra. Compare your life to your mother’s. Chances are, with an average income in the early Seventies, she only ate out at a local restaurant on birthdays and anniversaries. Takeaway coffee was unheard of. She owned one winter coat, which she wore for five years, minimum. A tub of hand cream and a pink lipstick were her beauty extravagances. As for holidays, that was for one week, once a year, in Wales.
Today we’ve got the designer fridge, telly, cookware and accessories and the cleaner to keep it all dust free. We eat out a few times a week and expect at least three annual holidays. “If I don’t get a skiing trip, a sun holiday and a city-break I feel cheated. I work hard and I really deserve it.” Modern minds are increasingly exhibiting a tendency to think of themselves as extra special and demand treatment that recognises that. This is the age of materialism and entitlement. Human society is in a global overshoot: consuming 30% more material than is sustainable from the world’s resources. Human society as in: those 85 countries (including the UK) currently exceeding their domestic “bio-capacities”, compensating for their lack of material by depleting the stocks of other countries. Consumer culture encourages individuals to want more, and ‘positive thinking’ is at hand to tell them they deserve it. Credit cards didn’t even exist until 1972 when the Access card was introduced to ‘Take the waiting out of the wanting’ a slogan that beautifully sums up the mindset that credit has created. Why wait, when you can spend money that you haven’t earned yet? Some social psychologists believe that the manic consumerism of today is partly rooted in the information age. Our parents tried to keep up with the neighbours. We are trying to keep up with our global average of 400 facebook friends. The paradigm has shifted from a local village race to the equivalent of the New York Marathon. Status updates are often thinly veiled attempts to upstage each other. Humans are hardwired to want what others have.
So are we any happier than more frugal generations? Not really. Our pleasure in purchasing has been diminished because it’s now a constant. Our parents set off with packed lunches, we have sushi and lattes everyday. We’ve lost perspective. Entitlement is a modern illness. If you have too much of anything, you stop appreciating it. Studies show that material goods are not actually giving us most pleasure. The activities that light up the pleasure centre in the brain are free. – Cuddles. Getting into clean sheets. A picnic with friends. We’re social creatures and things that stimulate your sense of community make you truly happy.
You don’t need that pony after all, do you? 🙂
(thanks to c.gray/stylist)
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