Monday, January 24, 2011

what is enough?

Some of what I have seen and read recently has me puzzled. I am wondering what is enough? The other day I read an article about people turning spare bedrooms into walk in closets. Walk-in closets. Because they have so many clothes, shoes, purses, etc that they cannot fit in a normal walk-in closet. This is not the problem of someone in an old house like mine, where the closets are about 18 inches wide. These are people who cannot fit their wardrobe in a large-ish walkin closet. What is enough?

An entire industry has grown around the storage of stuff. People pay rent, not for their home, but for a place to store the stuff they can't fit in their homes. And the American home is huge. I have been watching HGTV, a show about first time buyers. They want granite counters, walk in closets, huge bathrooms with soaking tubs. 2400 square feet is "kinda small". Big house, big furniture, big mortgage, big utility foot-print.

We eat enough food for two people. Maybe three. Starbucks just introduced a new drink, the trenta. That's a 30 ounce drink. Checkers makes a burger that is 4 beef patties, 4 slices of cheese, 4 slices of bacon.

Executive pay has reached new heights. No longer content with 50 times the average worker's salary, CEOs are asking for, and getting 500 times the average employee's wages. And then corporations lay off employees to be more profitable. Crazy.

It's all so excessive. So much more than what's needed. It's as if everything is a game, and quantity is the ultimate way of keeping score.

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