Each generation has more opportunities to flourish than the one before. I remember my grandparents saying they are thrilled how easy life is for their children.

Take the telephones, as an example.

My grandparents, farmers in Iowa, lived part of their lives without a phone. They would be shocked to see their great-grandchildren not only have a phone, but they have their own number…no party lines…and they can communicate with people all over the world with them!

They can do in seconds what my grandparents would assign a day to do.

Shopping – We have an app for that and it will be here tomorrow. My grandparents had to wait until Saturday, when they went to town to shop.

We get impatient and use credit to have it now. My farming grandparents had to wait until the fall to see how the harvest was before they made major purchases. Some purchases were put off for years. They made it themselves, made do with what they had, or did without…a concept unheard of today.

My parents had to wait until the end of the month. My generation had to wait until the end of the week, until credit cards became available to the masses.

Some of my children’s generation doesn’t wait at all. They receive their first student loan and then they buy a car we worked and saved for years to purchase. They go on vacations to exotic places I’m sure I may never see. They have large TV’s, the fastest computers, and games I may never buy.

But the price they pay will be the stress from carrying that debt…some for the rest of their lives.

They say you have to keep up with the latest technology, but there are two problems:

1. Today’s technology will be obsolete tomorrow, and
2. If you are always trying to keep up…it will be either sink or swim.

We are forgetting there is a third option available to us…

GET OUT OF THE WATER!!!

Choose at what point you will get back in the river and invest in newer technology. The river will always be there, but I prefer to only swim occasionally. I have found walking to be much more efficient and a lot less stressful and tiring.