busytimes,busylives
Lifestyle changes, lifestyle coaching, holidays in the Bahamas, homes in every country and cars of all sizes are ambitions every family is striving to achieve. World statistics show that more than 30% of the population is moving upward into the financially stable or middle class category every year. With the rush to achieve more, earn more and live better lives much is being neglected such as personal health and quality time with the family. In pictures and videos lifestyles of the rich and famous has an elusive charm which makes us all want to be like that. But what are the real details?
The other day, i visited my friends workplace. Its a rehab center in a secluded downtown area of Bangalore, India. She works there as a psychologist and I went with her expecting to see a wretched mass of humanity, covered in their own filth or some such thing. The sight that awaited me was far from it if not totally unlike anything I expected. The girls were mostly in their teens with a few elderly folk and some 1% was people from poorer backgrounds. All of them dressed like they just got off the runway and they were in for various problems related to alcohol and drug use. None of them were remotely remorseful or upset. Most of their parents were rich businessmen and women who had so much money, they wouldn't know what to do with it.
These kids were part of that dilemma. With pocket money that more than meets their needs, they turn to more excitement and thrills having tried out the regular stuff. Peer pressure adds to the situation and they end up trying 'exotic' experiences and live promiscuous lives or get into drug use.What amazed me was that these innocent little ones were no longer able to understand or simply did not want to deal with the right or wrong, simply because they never had anyone telling them not to or that something was unacceptable. One 16 year old from Bombay was in the institute after 3 hit and runs and felt no guilt whatsoever about her life or what she's done. All she wants is to get back to the busy life and go off on her next holiday. Are we inevitably carving our kids into sociopaths without a conscience or a sense of right and wrong? Are kids today getting way too many luxuries and way too much allowance and being excused from every manner of wrong they do? Is it time to stop and wonder whether in some respect we are responsible for this malady and think about setting things right?
More money, more luxury and more power does not solve your problems. It's ripping families apart and breaking down the very institution of marriage, of child-parent relationships, of the bond that holds a family together. These days it seems to me, money buys everything. Greed is the base of all aspirations and everybody's bothered about themselves and today. Maybe it's time to go back in time and think of what went wrong.
