Somehow, other countries and other cultures outside of the U.S. have managed to shield themselves far better than we have from the destructive influences of life in the twenty-first century.

My husband and I like to rent an apartment in Paris and spend time living as a Parisian rather than as tourists. It is obvious that the French way of life is very different from our own. That, in and of itself, is the allure of living in Europe. Paris is a large, cosmopolitan city, yet Parisians manage to relax and to slow down and enjoy just living, much better than we do.

I've made a point of watching people as they go about their daily, Parisian lives. Their lives seem so much less complicated than ours. Why is that? I wondered how they manage to spend so much time relaxing in cafes. They seem to spend hours sipping espresso or wine while chatting with friends. Indeed, there is an entire cafe culture in Europe, most notably in Paris. Why hasn't the café scene caught on in the U.S.? It has been tried and it has been, for the most part, a horrible failure here.

I decided that this observation goes right to the heart of the problem; our own society doesn't take the time to slow down and enjoy life along the way. We, as a country, are all about making money to buy more and more "things," heretofore known as “stuff.” George Carlin, years ago, said it best when in one of his diatribes he pointed out that we work hard to buy stuff. Then we need a place to put our stuff, so we work harder to buy a place to put stuff. Then, we need to buy more and better stuff, so we work more, buy more, and now, we need a bigger, better place to put our stuff. And on and on it goes.

Europeans, in general, are far less all consumed by the consumer frenzy. They don't use malls as forms of recreation. The very term "mall rat" is entirely an American concept. Europeans appreciate fashion as an art form; this is very true. But shopping as a national sport, as it is here at home, is something unique to America. 

Perhaps, buying that new, big-screen TV gives you a rush and makes you feel happy for a moment. But have you ever stopped to think about how you feel after a mega-shopping-trip to the mall or to a super-store? Haven't you ever wondered why, after you've returned home, you wish you'd have spent the day in the sunshine playing with your kids, instead of traipsing around the stores all day long on one of your few days off? I have. I think it's because buying that TV is a fleeting moment's high. You can't cuddle it, it doesn't kiss you goodnight when it's time to sleep. It's just more stuff.

Why is there so much more violent crime here in America than in Europe? I propose this, as the answer to that question; some people don't want to work. But these non-workers want the same stuff that everybody else has; they want immediate gratification without the years necessary to earn the money to buy the things they want. So, they find methods to get stuff the easy way. They steal stuff. Then they can buy the stuff they really want.

Criminals sell drugs, either to get money from the addicts or to buy drugs themselves, or to by stuff. They don't feel badly about this because in a society where material things are most important, they are just trying to get their fair share. They don't feel badly if someone gets hurt while they are committing crimes. When the soul is ill, you don't feel anything for anyone else. It's all about me," and my need to get stuff, they think. No other person or their life matters to those with sick souls.

Make no mistake; Carlin was making an important point; we are a stuff-oriented society. Once we became a society who valued what we owned more than our quality of life, we began a long slide down a slippery slope to where we are today; a soulless, unhappy group of people who still haven't realized that stuff can't make us happy.

There's a reason that therapists are booked solid these days. Depression runs rampant. We can't find enough stuff to fill the empty void inside. We're confused and stressed to the max.

We worry about our kids watching unhealthy, violent things on the screen. If Hollywood producers think that they can make money by making vacant, soulless productions, they'll do whatever it takes to make that buck. It used to be that we cared about the quality of the product, here in the U.S. of A. Now there's garbage on the screen to make money for the producers to buy stuff.

We wouldn't need ratings on movies if the people who produce trash had morals or scruples. But the desire for wealth has made many of them greedy. Movie making and T.V. used to be art forms. Now a good deal of it is just trash. How sad.

It isn't the movie industry and television programmers alone who bear guilt of making shoddy products. Made in the U.S.A. was something that we were once proud of. We produced products to be proud of. Now, not much is made here anymore. It's cheaper to make stuff elsewhere, where people will work for very little, in bad conditions, to make the things that Americans want. The things they make might not be made well, they may contain lead paint that poison our children, but don't worry, what is really important is that they are cheap so we can buy a lot of them!

I need to reflect back to Paris, and Europe as a whole, for another observation that I found interesting. I notice a small change in the mindset of Parisians that seems to have occurred between 2000, when I began to travel to Paris regularly, and now, in 2007. It seems that younger French people are beginning to join into the "life-in-the-fast-lane" mentality. I now see stress on the faces of the Metro commuters during the evening commute. French law is now changing to allow for more hours of work per week, fewer hours for enjoying life.

This worries me. Will France, and the rest of the world, for that matter, follow in our footsteps? Will they, too, succumb to the pressures of the modern world by allowing their souls, their way of life, to be severely altered by becoming a society of rampant consumers?

God, I hope not. I'm not sure what I'll do if I can't escape to a place where values and the pace of life are very different from our own. If can't get away now and then to enjoy life as I think it might have in the U.S. a century ago, it will be so terribly sad

If I had one piece of advice to give to the people of countries who have, so far, managed to hold on to their own, unique way of life, a lifestyle that doesn't rely on wealth to make them happy, I would say this; don't allow your soul be damaged by the need for material wealth. Fight the good fight to remain innocent. Hold on with both hands to your old ways. "Progress" comes at a price. Are you willing to sell your soul?