One of the things that irritates me lately is people's unending demand for instant gratification. People want stuff NOW and are not willing to wait for it. Never mind that they can't afford it, they STILL want it NOW. That is part of what got us into this financial jam we find ourselves in right now. People wanted to have their dream home NOW, they wanted their two minivans in the garage NOW and they wanted all their techno-toys NOW, even if it meant that they were running up their debt beyond any ability to pay for it. Banks enabled people by providing them with the loans and credit cards to run up all that debt and when the house of cards finally collapsed in 2008, the whole financial system went belly up. So now we're all hurting and of course, banks are bearing the blame for all of this because they pandered exotic financial products to people who could otherwise not afford a home. Believe me, it sounded tempting to drive by a house and see a sign out front saying, "Zero Down!" Well, someone in my income bracket can in no way save enough money to make a down payment on a home, so that sounded mighty good, but my mom always told me that if something sounded too good to be true, it probably is. So instead of leaping into home ownership that I can't afford, I still rent a too small apartment. Sure, there are lots of things I want: an iPad or iPod Touch, a pair of Uggs boots to keep my feet warm this winter, but look, I can't afford those things so I don't have them. I waited for years to get on the broadbant Internet highway. I spent this entire past decade using a massive old Gateway desktop computer on a dial-up connection. A few years ago I finally scored an obsolete laptop on eBay (on which I am typing right now) that was cheap because it was obviously part of an old business that got rid of its old laptops and put them up for sale on eBay. I scored this thing for a mere $250. It's not the newest or latest machine and by today's standards it's a virtual dinosaur but it does what I want it to do and it got me on the broadband highway. For years I had a 512MB iPod Shuffle, 1st generation, that I couldn't use with my old desktop, so when I acquired this laptop, I was finally able to download iTunes and use it, but then, I wanted something bigger, so when the iPod Nano 5th generation came out, I got a 4th generation Nano for $70 on eBay.
For years I wanted a new car. For my entire adult life, I drove old beater cars that I bought cheaply and drove until they died. The last beater I drove lasted for 10 years and racked up 220.000+ miles on it, but in its final year or so, it became a money pit and I ended up spending far too much money on repairs, so I began considering that maybe it was time to replace it with another $1000 beater, but at my age, that just seemed too frustrating. So my dear family gave me $1500 for my 50th birthday as a down payment on a brand new car. I'd done some car research for a few months prior to that and had even test driven a few cars and found them wanting or too expensive or something else. I had the extraordinary good luck to land a very good brand new car in 2007, a bright green Hyundai Accent hatchback. It's now nearing the end of its warranty period, 5 years or 60,000 miles, whichever comes first. With my daily 30 mile round trip commute, I've run up a lot of miles on my car. I hope it lasts a while longer because once the warranty runs out, car repairs are going to come out of my ever thinning wallet. But the thing is that I was willing to wait until I turned 50 before even THINKING about buying a new car. I live with college students who seem to feel entited to driving new cars. When I was their age, I was driving old rustbucket beaters and didn't care about having to have the latest car with the newest gewgaws on it. They all want the newest gadgets as well, and at age 54, I STILL don't own the newest stuff. I can't afford those things and never will be able to. I have to settle for older obsolete stuff because it's cheap. When I was growing up, I was taught that I could not have everything I wanted and when I wanted it. We grew up in a single parent household where we didn't have the kind of money our friends homes did, so we didn't always have what other people had and while that was occasionally frustrating, we all learned to live with it and live within our means. I still find myself being frustrated at times by lack of enough money to buy the things I'd love to have, but hey, you get used to dreaming of owning things you want but knowing full well you can't ever have those things until much later down the road when they are obsolete, older or no longer being used by everyone else. I just get sick of living in a society where people are being enabled by the "I WANT IT NOW" mentality. People are impatient and want everything this minute and haven't learned that valuable lesson that look, you can't always have that cookie you want, or there aren't any left, so cope. It's time that people stopped being so rude, so demanding and so intractable that they can't accept that sometimes, you've just gotta wait for what you want and you can't have it NOW. Period. Babies and toddlers don't understand why they can't have it NOW but you'd think that adults would get it. But given the way people are behaving lately, it seems that some folks just haven't learned yet that "You can't always get what you want!" to quote an old song. Those of us who work in customer service are tired of people wanting it now, now, now. Folks, wake up. Patience is a virtue. Grow up and learn it, already!
One of the things that irritates me lately is people's unending demand for instant gratification. People want stuff NOW and are not willing to wait for it. Never mind that they can't afford it, they STILL want it NOW. That is part of what got us into this financial jam we find ourselves in right now. People wanted to have their dream home NOW, they wanted their two minivans in the garage NOW and they wanted all their techno-toys NOW, even if it meant that they were running up their debt beyond any ability to pay for it. Banks enabled people by providing them with the loans and credit cards to run up all that debt and when the house of cards finally collapsed in 2008, the whole financial system went belly up. So now we're all hurting and of course, banks are bearing the blame for all of this because they pandered exotic financial products to people who could otherwise not afford a home. Believe me, it sounded tempting to drive by a house and see a sign out front saying, "Zero Down!" Well, someone in my income bracket can in no way save enough money to make a down payment on a home, so that sounded mighty good, but my mom always told me that if something sounded too good to be true, it probably is. So instead of leaping into home ownership that I can't afford, I still rent a too small apartment. Sure, there are lots of things I want: an iPad or iPod Touch, a pair of Uggs boots to keep my feet warm this winter, but look, I can't afford those things so I don't have them. I waited for years to get on the broadbant Internet highway. I spent this entire past decade using a massive old Gateway desktop computer on a dial-up connection. A few years ago I finally scored an obsolete laptop on eBay (on which I am typing right now) that was cheap because it was obviously part of an old business that got rid of its old laptops and put them up for sale on eBay. I scored this thing for a mere $250. It's not the newest or latest machine and by today's standards it's a virtual dinosaur but it does what I want it to do and it got me on the broadband highway. For years I had a 512MB iPod Shuffle, 1st generation, that I couldn't use with my old desktop, so when I acquired this laptop, I was finally able to download iTunes and use it, but then, I wanted something bigger, so when the iPod Nano 5th generation came out, I got a 4th generation Nano for $70 on eBay. 
For years I wanted a new car. For my entire adult life, I drove old beater cars that I bought cheaply and drove until they died. The last beater I drove lasted for 10 years and racked up 220.000+ miles on it, but in its final year or so, it became a money pit and I ended up spending far too much money on repairs, so I began considering that maybe it was time to replace it with another $1000 beater, but at my age, that just seemed too frustrating. So my dear family gave me $1500 for my 50th birthday as a down payment on a brand new car. I'd done some car research for a few months prior to that and had even test driven a few cars and found them wanting or too expensive or something else. I had the extraordinary good luck to land a very good brand new car in 2007, a bright green Hyundai Accent hatchback. It's now nearing the end of its warranty period, 5 years or 60,000 miles, whichever comes first. With my daily 30 mile round trip commute, I've run up a lot of miles on my car. I hope it lasts a while longer because once the warranty runs out, car repairs are going to come out of my ever thinning wallet. But the thing is that I was willing to wait until I turned 50 before even THINKING about buying a new car. I live with college students who seem to feel entited to driving new cars. When I was their age, I was driving old rustbucket beaters and didn't care about having to have the latest car with the newest gewgaws on it. They all want the newest gadgets as well, and at age 54, I STILL don't own the newest stuff. I can't afford those things and never will be able to. I have to settle for older obsolete stuff because it's cheap. When I was growing up, I was taught that I could not have everything I wanted and when I wanted it. We grew up in a single parent household where we didn't have the kind of money our friends homes did, so we didn't always have what other people had and while that was occasionally frustrating, we all learned to live with it and live within our means. I still find myself being frustrated at times by lack of enough money to buy the things I'd love to have, but hey, you get used to dreaming of owning things you want but knowing full well you can't ever have those things until much later down the road when they are obsolete, older or no longer being used by everyone else. I just get sick of living in a society where people are being enabled by the "I WANT IT NOW" mentality. People are impatient and want everything this minute and haven't learned that valuable lesson that look, you can't always have that cookie you want, or there aren't any left, so cope. It's time that people stopped being so rude, so demanding and so intractable that they can't accept that sometimes, you've just gotta wait for what you want and you can't have it NOW. Period. Babies and toddlers don't understand why they can't have it NOW but you'd think that adults would get it. But given the way people are behaving lately, it seems that some folks just haven't learned yet that "You can't always get what you want!" to quote an old song. Those of us who work in customer service are tired of people wanting it now, now, now. Folks, wake up. Patience is a virtue. Grow up and learn it, already!
1 comment:
Dang it, after reading your comments, I rushed out a bought a beach house. Hee Hee Hee
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