Doom and Gloom — Look For the Silver Lining?

Rain today is water through the tap tomorrow.

Spreading gloom and doom is easy to do. A few days ago we heard that food in supermarkets had severely risen in price. We went shopping and found we actually spent less because of many reductions. Do these reporters go from shop to shop looking for the highest price to report?

Evidently only 15% of income is spent on food. It used to be much higher than that. And clothes can be bought cheaper today than many years ago. In my younger days, it paid to do your own sewing, now it costs more to do so. Bags and shoes are bought like sweeties. I rather think that money goes on more non-essentials than anything else. Phrases like ‘must have’ ‘shop until you drop’ ‘retail therapy’ were unknown years ago. I think we must have been more content and happy then. ‘Much wants more,’ my mum used to say.

Of course, it’s foreign imports that give us cheap choice. Unfortunately someone has to pay and it is those working many hours for very little pay. It would be called slave labour if it happened here.

Sex too, is ‘cheap’ in the sense that it is seldom considered special with virginity a desirable state until that special person comes along.

Are people happier for spending money frivolously? For leading shallower lives?

Society has to pay the piper financially for the individual’s over-indulgence but the individual pays with severe problems in his or her later life — should they live that long.

What we need is to change our attitudes and be thankful for life itself, to live more simply — as the old saying goes — ‘that others may simply live.’

So best not to listen to those spreading gloom. Otherwise their forecast will be self-fulfilling. When troubles come, why not look for the silver lining?

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