Happy New Year All,
I hope this message finds that your New Year is off to a good start. Please find below a link to the 33 Voices website that is featuring an interview with me about my book Shiny Objects. The website also contains other interesting information on me and a host of other authors. Take a look:
http://www.33voices.com/james-a-roberts
PS A quote from Shiny Objects was featured in the February edition of Reader’s Digest on page 60. Reader’s Digest has a circulation of about 5.5 million.
Have a great week!
What do you think can be done to combat this problem? Do you think some kind of debt-education program in high schools would be a good idea? Or do you think that might be pointless because high school kids are unlikely to listen anyways? I know my thoughts on unnecessary spending tend to gravitate less towards people with fancy cars and houses and debt up to their eyeballs and more towards people that don’t have anything because they blow any kind of extra money they get on stupid stuff (guns, dogs, really crappy cars that fall apart) and have no concept of saving and lifting themselves out of poverty through hard work, etc. In your opinion, is this just plain lack of good judgment and brain cells? Or do you think some other thought process is to blame? And how would we begin to solve this ever-increasing problem in young people?
The solution to materialism and over-spedning is not an easy one. Madison Avenue spent $131 billion last year attempting to convince us that happiness can purchased on-line, at the mall, or from a catalog. And, their efforts appear to be working. Americans are some of the worst savers in the world. The problem is that we can never get enough. In my book, Shiny Objects, I talk about the treadmill of consumption. More and more spending doesn’t get us any closer to happiness it only speeds up the treadmill. As a colleague of mine once stated, “How can we ever get enough of what we don’t need?”. The solution to all of this starts with you. Each of us has to make a decision to foucs less on money and possessions and more on the things that can deliver lasting happiness: how we feel about our self, our relationships and our involvement in church and other community activities.