...are not the same thing at all.
"A Real Life" (book I am reading) is putting things into perspective a bit - I haven't really considered that despite our MUCH larger debts, larger houses, more cars, and more THINGS in general, we, as a society, are much less happy than we were 100 years ago. We believe our quality of life has been much improved...while I am not suggesting we all live as we did a century ago, I admit we seem to be going the wrong way as a society. Scary. I see people around me who have chased money and career, and are very obviously unhappy - and I worry about making that mistake.
With all our connectivity, we are isolated, most of us are lonely. Why? It seems so counter-intuitive, doesn't it? Over the past century (or two, I have no real measure), we have become less and less focused on relationships. This is evidenced by the way we spend our time (staring at TVs, video games, and even my weakness - books) and our money (on more stuff!) - these things don't promote our relationships - REAL ones - at all. By real ones, I mean relationships in which we share dreams, fears, concerns, and joys - open and vulnerable relationships that don't need entertainment to thrive, they only need each other. How many of those do we even have?
I am preaching to myself - I spend whole nights with my own husband simply watching TV, and then wonder why we don't feel close. Being in the same room doesn't make us connected at all - in fact, that much time close to someone that involves no true sharing and focused attention on each other could actually drive us apart over time. Something we need to work on...
More to come as I think about this.
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