“Our society is overly materialistic. We center our lives on acquiring material things at the expense of such traditional values as family and education.”
In present century, money is necessity, because we need to buy food, clothes, car, cell phone, laptop, and along with that money is required to pay bills. We all want to make enough money to live decent life. Our society respects and values a person with money because he can buy luxurious things. Our society requires many expensive things to live a decent life, so I agree that we are overly materialistic. However, we do not acquire materials at the expense of family and education because to make money we need education and a supportive family.
Last summer, I visited Pakistan, a third world country, to see my family. The government of Pakistan is corrupt, so it does not provide basic essentials to its citizens. There is no electricity, no clean water, and no gas. People have to spend a huge amount of money to buy solar systems and ups systems to keep lights of their houses. people spend allot of time and money to fill gas cylinders to cook. I noticed many people do not care about the dirty water, they are happy to have any water to drink. For them a decent life is to have enough electricity, gas to cook food, and clean water. Pakistani people believe Americans are lucky to have everything, they believe, Americans are always happy.
However, our American society believes decent life is to have an expensive car, iphone, ipad, and an expensive laptop. We are not happy with our lives because we want more things. For example, in my home we have iphones, ipad, and laptops. We do not realize that iphone has many similar functions as ipad and a laptop. Our society acquires materials that are not necessary to live, but we all want to have luxurious materials.
An average American spends more than forty hours a week to make money. We work hard, but most of the time, we waste that money to buy us expensive things, and that is becoming a problem in our traditional family time. I believe a person with a supportive family has great opportunity to become a successful person. Parents need to spend time with their kids to provide healthy nurturing, and to give back, children should respect and take care of their parents. A real happiness comes from people not the materials.
Even though, we are so materialistic, we still value education. We know that without proper education we will not be able to have a career to make money. Our young generation realizes that education is important to live decent life. I have seen many high school students who are willing to spend ten years in college education to become doctors, because careers in medicine provide great salary.
In conclusion, our society is overly materialist. We spend so much time making money to buy expensive things that are not necessary. Sometimes, we ignore our traditional family values, but we still need support and love from our families to grow healthy life. We values education because without education we will not be able to live a decent life.