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The luxury car zips along the highway. Soundless, smooth, and perfect in every way. The brilliant Summer sun is overhead and the sky is a stunning blue. Yet you are oblivious. Your windows are sealed tight and the air conditioner quietly hums, providing the perfect temperature for the interior of your car. Music drifts softly from your 5-speaker, top-of-the-line stereo system. Your GPS gives instructions every once in a while to remind you where to turn to reach your destination. It's almost like you are a passenger, and not actually driving.

The same can pretty well be said for your life in general.

Secure in your world of metal and plastic you often miss out on so much. You believe you are so 'with it', but in reality, in many ways, you are missing the best life has to offer.

In today's world, contentment seems to be found in our own little space. What happens outside that space holds little interest for you.

Often there is no stopping to smell the roses, because you are too immersed in the scent of prosperity. A beautiful Summer day means little. Nor does a sunrise, a sunset, or the call of a loon over a serene, mist-covered lake.

Your Nirvana, fueled by prosperity has taken your life in a new direction. It has taken your sense of value and beliefs right along with it. Happiness is in a $1000 suit, a late model car, and a home with a nanny.

Someone has to be around when the kids come home. You are a responsible parent. You make good and certain that your beautiful 6-year-old child has someone to show that latest work of school art.

Priceless art.

But not to you.

As you cruise the streets of your city, you pass by the 'rest' of the world. The huddled masses who are not quite so fortunate. Beggars in the street are a vexation to your spirit. The homeless who are someone else's problem. You are confident the teens that haunt the dark shadows of the city in their drug-induced haze could never be your child.

After all, you have a great nanny.

A story from a few Winter's back sticks in my mind. It happened in my prosperous, modern city.

The city was immersed in a cold spell that saw temperatures plummet to -30. An 18-year-old girl who had just gotten her driver's license was making a journey from a small town just 30 minutes from the city. Her car broke down half way home. She had no cell phone. So she sat in her car, not knowing what to do. She put her flashers on as she had been told to do in case of emergency and waited.

And waited.

Nobody stopped. She was on a major highway. Dozens and dozens of vehicles sped by. She was beginning to freeze and in desperation she got out of her vehicle and started to walk toward home.

Nobody stopped. Cars roared past this poor soul.

The lights of the city glowed in front of her, but there was just too much highway to cover in those conditions.

She was near giving up when a car passed her and then suddenly pulled over. It was another young lady. She was driving an old beat up car, but the heat in that old beater was Heaven to the stranded teen. It most likely saved her life.

The police eventually spotted the car and contacted the girl and heard the story. The press saw the police report and the next morning the headlines in bold black letters read "SHAME ON US." It told the story of what had transpired the evening before.

Has prosperity over-shadowed values and beliefs?

Oh yes! In so many cases, yes. It is such a 'me' society.

It seems the people who have less, are richer. They are the ones who still care about their fellow man. They know what life is like in the trenches. They watch out for each other when nobody else will.

Many others have forgotten what truly matters in life. The world turns for them and not much else matters.

Yes, "shame on us."

Learn more about this author, Ray Fauteux.
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