As Americans, we live quite well. We, if you stop and think about it, actually have a lot of stuff.
Not just a lot compared to Third World countries, but too much for us sometimes to even appreciate. Although we have big screen television sets, cell phones, nice cars and SUVs, plenty of clothes and countless other luxuries, we still end up wanting more.
Something always has to be better or bigger or more advanced than what we had before to keep us satisfied. These constant obsessions and wants for more often leave us feeling empty and unfulfilled in the end. The real challenge in life is not doing all we can to get more, but doing what we can to appreciate the things we have: life, family, food, education, you know, the finer things in life, the things that matter and the things that we often take for granted.
Have you even been told at the dinner table as a child that you should finish all your food because there are starving kids in Africa who would be happy to have your leftovers? Well if you're anything like me, or if your parents are like mine, you would've automatically felt a disappointed and reluctant form of guilt.
Then you would've proceeded to eat the rest of your tuna hotdish no matter how bad it tasted or how full you were. The sad thing about that phrase our parents may have used to get us to eat when we were younger is true. And for some reason that concept of people suffering while we have more than enough never really sunk in.
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According to United Nations human development reports, there are 40 million Africans in danger of starving to death. The reports describe these people's condition as "unprecedented suffering." That means there are 40 million people who probably don't get even one good daily meal. How many meals, plus snacks, do we have in a day?
I'm not trying to say that eating less is going to save starving kids in Africa, but I am trying to say that our lack of compassion and empathy is causing us, as the wealthy and privileged of the world, to lose sight of the things that matter in life.
It is when we focus on ourselves and our own personal gains that we really become slaves to materialism. It is a master that forces us away from personal relationships that inspire us and ultimately make us who we are.
Materialism takes us away from the pure world of an innocent child's to a made-up world sponsored by rich CEOs who care only for our money and our negligence to the bigger things in life so that they themselves can become richer and thus making people in places like Africa poorer and making people like us who buy into all the lies they feed us about the world poorer in spirit.
So what can we do? Be thankful.
Jacob Schumacher is a senior at Detroit Lakes High School.
