Lifestyle Addiction – Social problem or personnel scare?

Addictions are always these deadly devils, and always associated with visibly harmful thinks like Alcohol,drugs, smoking, tobacco etc, But there are much more harmful addictions than these, which may lead to a lot more stress and worry when you cannot support those any more.

People who have grown up in average to above average earning families have been through a lot of financial problems growing up. Lifestyle of these people are also average to above average, you might like eat once/twice a month outside, may be have a monthly once outing to a movie hall, do some clothes shopping once a quarter, and may be buy a commodity once in two years. This pretty much sums up my growing up time. I was absolutely fine with that. We do have some dreams but we know our and our family limitations, and we are not so bent upon that all our dreams needs to be fulfilled.

Lifestyle has changed over the years, its no longer cool to eat at home over the weekends, its cool to spend like 100 bucks on a coffee, which you would not even drink at home. Its cool to spend 60 bucks on a movie and even get out of it in middle if you don’t like it.Please don’t get me wrong, I am not saying people should not do these things. I am just saying that the lifestyle has changed.

I don’t care much now when I spend like 200 bucks per meal once a week, nor when I shop once/twice a month for clothes. I don’t even think much when I spend 5000 to 10000 bucks when we go for a vacation once in two/three months.

Now this seems to be a dangerous addiction sometimes. Our lifestyle seems to be so much dependant on the abnormal growth in our earnings. Though a 20/30 % in salary annually is pretty common, our expenditure has grown at a much faster rate. Just look around, you will find lot of people with fat salaries with a even fatter mortgages.

Can we sustain this?.
Can we sustain the 2 digit growth our techie companies have been reporting over years.?
More dangerous thing is, are we prepared to accept if we cant sustain.?
Has our addictions gone far beyond rehabilitation?.
Can we get back to our old average life?