The lifestyle you’re dreaming of is restricted to a select few, such as myself. Although I don’t have a flying car. Don’t want one, either.
I live in Manhattan, work 30 hours a week over 4 days. If I work a fifth day, assuming I don’t do overtime, I get a whopping $20 after taxes. (I won’t pretend to understand the contractual reasons why…)
It is unfortunate that the meaning of the word, “bohemian,” is not portable to the United States, where for every bohemian satisfied with eating offal, dried beans, salt pork, oatmeal, white rice, and homemade artisanal loaves, there is a horde which insists that organic produce, whole grains, lean meats, and domestic artisanal cheeses is correct.
That reminds me of a poll I read which was taken at a university. The question was
Would you rather make 100k when everyone around you made 200k or would you rather make 50k when everyone around you made 25k.
Most people chose to make 50k. However when it came to asking about vacation days people chose to have more vacation even if it meant others got even more vacation.
Sadly this competitiveness is hardwired into our brains and is making our lives worse than they need to be.
The book luxury fever talks about how we are losing family time, personal time, abandoning the poor and losing touch with our true goals in life in our efforts to keep up with each other. The author also talked about how when he went to India he lived in a one room hut but after a few days didn’t mind it because that was what was considered the normal lifestyle.
Answer is competition. If make $50k and others make $25k, then you live in nicest house in town, kids go to nice summer camp etc.
If you make $100k and others make $200k, then you can’t even afford house must live in apartment everything struggle.
To a degree. People don’t want to be wealthy in any objective sense of the word, they want to have 20-50%+ more money than ‘average’ people. What is average varies by geography and time though. In one culture it means owning two bicycles, in another it means owning two luxury cars.
I don’t think it is due to struggle though. People survived fine without computers, TVs, the internet, central heating/cooling and living in houses that were 600 sq. ft. People of all economic groups are struggling, some people who make 10k struggle and some who make 120k struggle. So that alone isn’t the reason.
People have compete and struggle since beginning of time. "Thou shalt not covet . . . "
True. But in the 21st century a person in the developed world doesn’t need to struggle per se just to survive. A person can live in a tent or a straw one room shack and live off of rice and bread on an income of $5-10/day. That life is not considered deprived by 18th century standards and if a person were transported back to the 18th century I doubt they’d mind it after a while. But to live a life of today’s standards with the 2500 sq ft homes, two cars, cable TV, broadband, central heating/air etc nobody can do that and not feel like a failure. In the year 2100 people will compete to live in 7000 sq foot 5 story houses and have technologies we can’t dream of and treat them as necessities.
What country are you from out of curiosity, I’m guessing Russia.
Even if have food and shelter many people struggle even in US today.
I know. I’m saying that if people lived the lifestyles of 50-100 years ago on today’s salaries they wouldn’t struggle. But that isn’t realistic, people aren’t giving up medicine and technology in favor of a lower stress life.