Coming to a country near you...

Over the last few weeks, the middle class in China has been a hotbed of unrest- strikes, protests, and widespread complaints. Over the last ten years, they have gotten used to their standard of living, complete with cars, vacations, gadgets, and meals out with friends. The younger generation has come to see these things as a right. The Chinese are no longer willing to live a life of subsistence; they want more.

China has become yet another country to fall to the lure of materialism, confusing the ability to have "stuff" for rights. They are not protesting for basic freedoms or human rights. Those are secondary. They are unhappy with the government because the government is not doing what they feel is necessary to guarantee their current level of material comfort.

What's the big deal, you say. The big deal is that, like any capitalist economy, the moment human rights and freedoms become secondary to material comfort beyond basic survival, then freedom becomes a saleable commodity. All a government has to do is keep you fat and happy, providing lots of "stuff" to distract you, and they have the right to treat you however they want. It's like waving a shiny object in front of your face to distract you as they get ready to kick you.

Here in the US, we trade money for basic rights every day. We allow companies to pollute our environment and to exploit our open spaces so that we can save a few pennies on consumer goods. We give up our privacy for convenience, with cell phones, EZ pass cards, and shopping and debit cards. We allow corporate interests to dictate our war policies and so send our sons to die on foreign shores. We permit greed for "stuff" to erode love and kindness toward others. We have sold ourselves and our higher ideals for cars, TVs, jewelry, clothes and more and have become so blinded that many of us do not even notice what is going on around us. While I am no conspiracy theorist, I am aware that there are injustices and short changing being done to us everyday without our knowledge.

Over concern with material wealth is a disease and it is spreading. Is it any wonder that societies who have other values do not want anything to do with us? Even why they hate us? While the ideas that founded this country are admirable: equality, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, we have focused almost solely on the pursuit of happiness. And it is not just that pursuit, but how we define happiness that is the danger. Corporate America, in its evolution to multinational status, has spread that material vision of "happiness" far and wide with pinpoint accurancy and effectiveness. Western Europe has long since fallen victim to it, now the East is too. Next, the whole world.

The answer starts with every one of us. We must look at ourselves and our lives and start asking the hard questions. What is it we truly need? What are the things that have truly brought us lasting personal peace and happiness? What are the things that I have that are not necessary to that peace and happiness? What are the things I can do to bring that true peace and happiness into my life and the lives of others? I would be willing to bet that the answers to these questions do not gel with what Madison Avenue has been telling us.

I am not saying that all material things are evil and that we should not be striving for progress. It is only when we can focus on things other than basic survival that we can give time and space to higher principles. What I am concerned about is the unchecked pursuit of these things and the dangerously elevated status placed on them. I refuse to have the value of my life on this earth to be defined by the pile of "stuff" I have accumulated and consumed by the end of it. I am not the sum of my things; I am the sum of my actions and the effect these actions have had on this world. My life is justified by how I have brought more love, compassion, understanding, and kindness into this world.

If you had to write your obituary today, what would you want it to say? How would you want the value of your life to be summed up? What would you want your impact on this world to be?