(#5796) Our American society is out of balance

      Far too many of us are living paycheck to paycheck. We have little ability to adjust our budgets to help the needy when we are, it seems, always in need ourselves. That cannot be a sustaining dynamic. For those of us who are not interested in being nothing but capitalists all the time we find our lives have been reduced to a sense of frustration at not being able to live peacefully without the constant pressure to make money. The drive of capitalism is exhausting! Especially when it leaves everyone else out in the cold for not being "all in". Capitalism is just a function to help with bartering. It is necessary to barter as our society sees needs that have to be met when we decide to contract with each other under rules of law.
     However life isn't just about financial drive. Many like myself just want enough to live decently without being extravagant or ostentatious. Simplicity in life allows others and myself an ease to approach what we find useful and purposeful. Gaining monetary fortune is not a value to me. Gaining time to be what I am and like to do is a value to me. Yet, it seems that those who are greedy and lustful for more have made life harder for those of us who just want more of a simplicity of ease. Their rat race world concept has put the rest of us into a bind if we want to survive in their forced reality. Instead of enjoying life we the many must endure it. All to make the wealthy feel better about their illogical concepts that don't include how a society finds its happiness.
     I get the need to produce so that peace and harmony can be defended but when the balance of the one overwhelms the other it is a catastrophe in the making. Work and peace can live together in harmony but not when one is dominating the other. We need work to make our society strong but that strength must not crush the peace within our souls. It would be the same with peace. If peace at all costs were the dynamic then we would find ourselves vulnerable to those who would force peace from us for their own devices. Which is why a balance of both work and peace must cohabitate in our lives. Peace through strength is the ideal and for us to get to that the work must be a fulfilling paradigm that we all understand gives us the peace to live within our hopes and dreams.