The things we dreamed about back in the 1930s have been realized many times over by most of us, but somehow those material gains haven’t provided the sense of well-being one might have expected.
A school friend of mine was asked to write an essay about what he hoped to do when he became an adult.
“When I grow up,” he wrote, “I’m going to move as soon as I can to some place where there is steam heat.” He was thinking of those bitterly cold mornings when there was ice on the water pail and there was no heat in the house until someone braved the cold to light the stove and the space heater.
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Now we have central heating by natural gas and we can get dressed in the morning without freezing our feet on the floor and without having our teeth chattering as we don our clothes. No more does mother call out:
“Eugene, go get an armful of wood.”
Today, as we move into the Christmas season, when we “spend like Santa but save like Scrooge,” we seldom think about the comforts we have acquired in the last 50 years.
There seems to be something in the human psyche that keeps us ever yearning for the grass on the other side of the barbed wire. Perhaps we should re-examine the materialistic goals we have been seeking and focus on building a society where peace on earth is based on good will toward all mankind.
When the family gathers for Christmas or even if you observe the season alone, we hope a brief bright hour of contentment will be yours and this will lead to many more such hours in the New Year.
