World Culture - How societies around the world are similar when it comes to wants vs needs

Dear Steemit Friends,

Everywhere around the world places have their own culture - what they believe, what languages they speak, and how we act and behave. For the most part our own culture identifies us and allows people to somewhat figure out where we are from.

Coming from the US, Travelling around the world, and living in the Philippines for the past 11 years, I have been exposed to various cultures and the very nuances and differences that make our different cultures special and unique.

One very similar characteristic is our human nature and how we as humans often times live beyond our means and are driven by our desires.

I want This
I want That

I'm sure most people have said those phrases more then once in their life. In the 2 places I have lived for a majority of my life, a vast majority of the people work tirelessly to accumulate and surround themselves with "stuff" that they want, but dont necessarily need.

In the Philippines, although salaries are low and sometimes not even enough to cover the cost of living expenses, people still spend - and sometimes spend absorbingly. The idea of saving is not a predominant practice - nearly 86% of Filipinos do not have bank accounts according to the Philippines central bank. The Philippines is truly a consumer country with many of it's citizens living from paycheck-to-paycheck. On payday, usually on the 15th and 30th of every month or every 2 weeks, you can expect that most ATMs will have long lines in front of them with people eagerly waiting to withdraw all of their funds.

In the US, we see somewhat of the opposite. Salaries are high and abundance is great. A vast majority of the people over-indulge almost to the level of waste. We want, but we want for a very limited time, until the next big thing comes out. Although this happens everywhere, we have it the worst, because in most cases we have the resources needed to indulge. We all like being surrounded by nice things and we make it a point to do so. We buy the big house because we like space, we buy the nice car - even though it is the least efficient, because we want power and prestige.

This was not meant to belittle, judge, or criticize; instead it was just an afterthought I had of how we waste our time and our money on things that mean so little in the end. Life is passing us by and there are so many things in this world to see and do to let meaningless things hold us back from experiencing what we should really be spending our time and money on.

The next time you make a purchase, consider whether you really need it and whether it will make your life better - Is there somewhere else that you can better spend that money? It is often times hard to resist the urge, but if you can resist, you will find something more meaningful to spend your hard earned money on in the future.

As always Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this post - please Follow, Upvote, Comment, Resteem and let me know what you think in the comments below

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