I just got home from taking my sister to work...on my way this is what I saw...
I was heading up the road and got to the stop light. Its a long wait at that light, to steal from the TV show WEEDS - its the punishment light, so I had time to look around and see what was going on. A man was walking up the median carrying one of those little plastic cooler/lunch box things in one hand and a 12 pack of beer in the other. He had on blue work clothes and appeared to be covered in a white dust that I can only assume was either concrete dust or plaster dust. You could tell this man was a hard working man, one who works for the family that he couldn't live without.
I thought to myself,
damn - must suck to not have a car. But as soon as I thought that another thought hit me twice as fast. I thought to myself - maybe this man chooses not to have a car, maybe its just an unneeded commodity in his life. Maybe he just doesn't need that to be happy. Here he is, a working man, maybe 40 years old or so, coming home from a long day in at work in the South Carolina heat who is just excited to get home to his wife and children, sit down and eat a hot meal and enjoy a well deserved beer.
why do we think, as a collective people, that material possessions are going to make us happy. We feel we need the big house with the latest kitchen appliances and gadgets. We have to have 2 bathrroms and a t.v. in every room, everyone in the house has to have a cell phone...we dont NEED these things - these are things of desire, want and craving.
He made me remember my own simpler times...growin up my father was a construction worker, often laid off in the winter when the weather in upstate NY just wasnt ideal for work, a mother who was a chef. We lived in a 3 room trailer, I often drank fresh milk from my uncles farm that my father worked for when laid off just to provide us with something nutritious. I wore the same sneakers for more than one school year, had hand me down clothes from my 3 sisters, had Christmas' that most now a days would laugh at. I was 13 or so when my parents finally got 2 cars instead of having to share one. No complications, hard times worked through easily...we were happier then....when things were simpler.
