Unit 3: Journal #3 (Quindlen) Stuff Is Not Salvation response

Marquise Nurse-Williams
Stuff Is Not Salvation Response
10-20-10
                                                                    Get Money!
        
                        In Anna Quindlen’s article, Stuff Is Not Salvation, she touches on the subject of American materialism and our desire for wants over needs. She starts off showing how crowds of people stampeded over a man who fell to the floor of a Wal-Mart store during a Black Friday sale, because they just needed get their grubby hands on that new microwave or television set for half the price. She goes on to speak of the national debt, as America falls into a trillion dollar credit card debt. Then she refers to how the average person’s cell phone only lasts about 16 months at the most, only because it has gone out of style. She then moves on to talk about the children and their want for the newest items in the toy commercials during Christmas and how they are unappreciated by Easter, collecting dust in the garage. As a solution, she finds the happiest people don’t rely on “stuff” or appliances to bring them happiness, but in fact she found a family in Pennsylvania that has learned to appreciate the small things. They kept their lives simple so that even the smallest gift would have meaning to it and wouldn’t be just another toy in the car hold. As an American citizen I find that Americans do put too much money into things they don’t need as people from other countries spend on necessity and rarely on what they want.
                    An example of American spending over necessity would involve my amazing cousin Ivor. He bought a $300,000 Rolls Royce with a house on the side on credit and while doing the payment he lost his job working in real estate. If he had any since, he would have bought a more practical car rather than something that he really didn’t need.
                   One example of how people are different in spending overseas, from my experience, was my time I got to spend with the foreign nationals Balad ,Iraq. They were people from all over the world. China, India, Russia, Yugoslavia and even Pakistan and they worked along side my coworkers and I. These people worked everyday with no days off for months to years at a time, for very low wages in a contracting gig called KBR. My buddy Kumar from India, told me the money he earns goes to his large family back home. It’s for food, water, shelter and nothing else. It was nearly the same situation for the rest of these people. When me and my American coworkers would give them birthday parties on the job and gifts, the smallest recognition for their time and effort meant the world to them. The job and the money it brought in meant everything to their families and their well being as well.
                    I find the American mentality to “keep up with the Kardashion’s” is a false salvation, as Quindlen proposes. Everyone wants to be on the top and in control, instead of feeling like they’re being lorded over I suppose. People believe money is what makes a person happy when in fact it’s the small things that people eventually learn makes a person happiest. Things like real family who would be there to help you when times get bad, or one real true friend over the hundreds pretending to be just that. Or even that special someone who would rather be with you than anyone else and those moments you get to spend with them. The all mighty dollar won’t buy these things, and many people in this blessed country forgot that. As Brian would say “We lost the values, but kept the weed…”