Too many wants

by Anthony Abrahamsen (Section 2, Spring 2011)

We have a hit a point in our generation where scarcity has reached an all time high. This is not because we have run out of resources it is because we have become too greedy. Everybody wants to have everything, but few are willing to work for it. It’s clear that our wants are much greater than our resources, yet because we live in America, people think that they are entitled to have whatever they want. Even though our country has been in economic turmoil for the past few years, we still are the greatest country in the world, but we take it for granted. There are many poorer countries than ours with people who are much happier than us. So why are we unhappy, and going through this bad contraction? The answer is simply greed; Americans have gotten too used to luxuries.

There has been a lot of fuss over the recently proposed budget cuts for schools in Pennsylvania. These cuts are happening because our country is simply too far in debt and our leaders are looking for ways to fix that. Schools are an easy copout for the government because the government is who fund schools, so they are the first big industry to lose money. The question I have is do we really need everything that colleges offer these days? When I was a student at Duquesne University, I had the luxury of a top of the line, 5 story gym. This gym, aka the Power Center, cost over a million dollars to make, and they used every penny. It has multiple weight rooms, basketball courts, racquetball courts, cardio areas, and pretty much any physical activity has become a class in the Power Center. In the last couple years, California University has gone through many cosmetic changes. There are new dorms, a new arena currently being built, all of which has cost millions of dollars. I have been in a few of the newer dorms at Cal, and they are beautiful. A double dorm at Cal is twice the size of the dorm I stayed in at Duquesne, which is five times the price of tuition. While all of these things are nice, are they necessary? My answer is no. College is a place for learning; 18, 19, and 20 year olds do not need to live in the Taj Mahal of dorms to get a good education. It seems to be like the majority of the funding schools receive is being put towards luxuries, but this is what our generation wants. Now that our government is cutting budgets, everyone is in an uproar. I believe that we have become extremely spoiled as a country, and now we are paying for it. They say that you have to spend money to make money, but our country has spent too much. Our country as a whole needs to realize that we are very fortunate to live where we do, and that if you want everything you can have it, but it requires hard work. That is the American Dream, and it seems that we have lost sight of that.