The pursuit of the American Dream, causes one to follow down a treacherous road, similar to the one Hunter S Thompson went down in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Affluenza defined by John Gaff is "a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the" determination to pursue more. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affluenza#cite_note-de_Graaf-0)Personally, I would consider it more of a disease, that most people in western civilization are diagnosed with, sadly I see signs of the disease in myself.
I find myself never satisfied with what I buy, and I always want more.
The last few months have been pretty stressful for me; I did a lot of travelling, and with travelling comes shopping. Sadly, my air fare, and most of my purchases were made with my Visa. After all this temporary happiness wore off, I was stuck with a 2000 dollar visa bill and a part-time job. This made me very anxious and I decided I must pay it off right away. I'm only 19, and it seems illogical for me to already been in such debt!
Now, I am working full-time while I attend school full-time, and I am overloaded with work and school. I have been putting entire pay checks towards my visa bill, but I still shop and spend my money on things that provide only temporary satisfaction.
The worst part about it all is I can see myself doing this, and being a subject of affluenza, yet I do nothing about it. I think the media has a really big influence on the decisions I make. I bought a pair of 'combat' boots yesterday for 100 dollars, I could have spent much less on a pair of boots that will last me through the winter, but I thought, "these look good, and they are in style, I should spend the extra money for this reason."
I see affluenza every where, especially within my family because I am a part of it and rather then looking at them from the outside I have an internal perspective. My parents are currently in a 6 year process of renovating their home. The last 6 years have involved a lot of procrastination and mishaps. At the moment, their house is in an uncomfortable living environment, and rather then spending their money on the necessary materials and labor to finish the house, they have decided to put money towards a vacation to Florida. I spoke to my dad, explaining how I think it would be much wiser to place his money towards the house as he would experience more long term satisfaction then a 3 week vacation to Florida. In response, he told me he chooses how he spends his money, and his decision is final. Every one wants to achieve happiness, but it seems every one has forgotten how to be truly happy.
I wonder if there is any way to move away from this disease.
It seems that it has become such a big part of our society that we can't help but transmit this idea to our children. In order for affluenza to stop, sustainable development would have to take over (affluenza is obviously not a sustainable way of life).
It seems with the evidence of carbon emissions, food scarcity, poverty, lack of fertile land and space we will slowly follow the path to sustainable development, and that should take most of society away from affluenza.
