As I was taking my lunch break strolls this week, I couldn’t’ help but noticing the abundance of material wealth around me. For an area with over 10% unemployment, we all certainly still have a lot of toys. I wasn’t just observing educated professionals walking out of posh office buildings, but people driving cars down busy streets, and pedestrians walking in and out of various shops and restaurants. Need I mention that almost everyone was glued to some sort of cell phone device, and even if people’s cars were not the latest to roll off the assembly line, most still looked pretty dang good. Numerous people were dressed to the hilt, and obviously a good many of us still eat out quite a bit, as evidenced by the foot traffic I saw going in and out of various eateries. The stereotypical image of a poor person- frail, thin, dressed in shaggy clothes, and with holes in their shoes, was nowhere to be found.
Even though I was in a somewhat affluent area of town, aren’t we the group who has been whining about our standard of living being on a fast track to hell? All the media hoopla seems to disproportionately focus on high end earners losing their six-figure incomes or people who lived way beyond their means and are now being kicked out of homes that cost 15-20 times their yearly incomes. Though most of us have lost a great deal of wealth on paper and many have lost jobs, there seems to still be quite a few people with quite a bit. As I took inventory of all my little treasures and extravagances (beautiful apartment, cell phone, car, computer, yoga classes, Friday night take-out, internet, big screen tv) I realized that like the people I see on my lunch walks each day, I have more than enough, and knowing you have more than enough is empowering and humbling. It makes me embarrassed I have ever complained at all.
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