Victims Of Our Own Sucess

Much of our worry was brought about by our own doing.
In our rush to be more - we may have created problems larger than those we were trying to solve.

I have a neighbor who works sixty to seventy hours a week.
His wife works about the same.
His children were never denied any of their childhood desires.
The family has a nice house, nice cars and all of the things most people work for.

But all is not well in their paradise.
Their only son is in prison for seventy-five years after his conviction for robing some guy and then beating him, and then stabbing him, and the shooting him, and then lighting the guy on fire.
And the guy lived to testify against him.
Apparently all the free time given to him, as a result of his parents working so much, gave him the opportunity to get involved with the wrong crowd (Well, really... to become the wrong crowd.).
His family has spent more than a couple hundred thousand dollars on legal fees, bail and fines.
I wonder if they had worked less and spent more time with their children - would their family be better off?

Their daughter has four children by three different men (one whom is in prison with her brother).
Their daughter has to work a lot of overtime to support these four children - leaving them to be raised mostly by her mother.
The boys aren't bad. Recently, I taught one how to ride his new bike. They always say "Sir" and ask before they do anything.
But the result of all the hours spent alone will probably continue the cycle of their material needs being met instead of their moral foundation being laid.
Sometimes the money made fails to pay for all of the problems created in trying to make it.

Every year, the "fat months" seem to be over a longer period of time.
My fat months (months that I only go to the gym or run when there is nothing else to do) used to be between Thanksgiving and New Years Day.
Since moving to Texas, this period has been stretched past the Super Bowl up until Mardi Gras.
A lay off of just over a month is doable - but three months of partial sloth gets harder and harder to recover from.

We no longer have to worry about working for our meals.
In earlier times, we had to actually expend some type of physical effort in order to eat.
We used to eat for fuel - not just because something looks good or is convenient.
A typical meal at any convenient fast food restaurant usually has enough calories, fat and sugar to last a hard working man a whole day.

Add to these meals; the dyes, preservatives, steroids and antibiotics added to the meat, breads and vegetables - and we get food that may be doing more harm than good.
Add to all this; the fact that we have taken so many nutrients from the ground by over planting - we now need to add synthetic nutrients (fertilizers made from petroleum products) back into the ground to get food that is not as good for us as the food from two generations ago.
Add to this; the harm (financial and ecological) that those petroleum products do.

And we wonder why we have so many illnesses and the inability to properly fend them off.

Our gain is usually someone else's loss.
Maintaining our quality of life usually requires someone else to have to suffer.
My affordable (compared with the price it would have cost if the laborers who made it were paid a livable wage) flat panel TV requires some kid or peasant to be exploited somewhere in China.
The computer on which I'm now typing was purchased at one of the Big-Box stores. That Big-Box store put many smaller businesses... out of business.
The medicines that are advertised on television usually have side effects that are worse than the ailment they are trying to cure.
And on and on...

IMO - It seems that the old idea of "Better living through science" is a mostly subjective view.
"Better" for whom?