Prosperity

Material wealth is definitely a blessing and a curse. We who live in America are the wealthiest people as a whole on the face of the earth, and we who live now are the wealthiest generation of Americans ever. America has the richest "poor" people in the world (the link is to a study by the Heritage Foundation). That is to say, those who are classified as poor or who consider themselves poor are much better off than the "poor" of any other nation on the planet.

Our society has come so far over the past generation in terms of quality of living. Here is a tremendous description of that - from Carpe Diem Blog: Young Americans: Luckiest Generation in History.

We should be grateful for all that we have, no matter how much or how little we have. Too often we take what we have for granted and only focus on what we don't have and what others do have; and by doing that we make ourselves miserable, we become overly materialistic, we end up focusing on ourselves too much, we make impulsive short-term decisions that make ourselves worse off, and we develop greed and envy towards others and the possessions of others.

Stop, take inventory of what you have in your life. Look at where you are and focus on doing good. The wonderful thing about capitalism is that it rewards those who help the greatest numbers of people.