
The impact of gratitude on adolescent materialism and generosity - joeyespo
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17439760.2018.1497688
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aklemm
My friend and I discussed this today and are still left without a lot of good
ideas for our kids (who are mostly normal), but show shocking levels (to us)
of materialism and lack of gratitude.

What’s developmentally appropriate? When is a kid ready to focus away from
shiny stuff onto what matters for a good life?

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qwerty456127
Just make sure they learn to recognize the value of trans-material assets: one
can loose their financial wealth in an instant easily, but their reputation,
skills, knowledge, intelligence, health, psychological capacity, inner dignity
and freedom of compassion, unconditioned vision and decision-making are less
volatile. Understanding this is the first step upwards and is enough for many.
Eventually, as the consciousness develops and matures a subject can also
recognize these assets are also volatile and seek forth to meet their true
self that actually owns these and is the only reliable invariant in their
subjective universe.

At the same time try to avoid values dichotomization so the kid won't grow up
with a destructive idea of financial wealth being a bad thing to pursue.

If their intelligence seems not sufficient try to make it fun for them to play
n-back games like BrainWorkshop, their intelligence will develop stronger and
my experience suggests it helps to grok all kinds of stuff (including even
transcendental matters!) a lot, in whatever an age (it in fact has enhanced my
own mind capacity enough to instantly realize that life in a society is not a
zero-sum game and it is usually more beneficial for myself to help others to
develop, succeed and strive than to care about maintaining competitive
advantage over them and that in whatever an argument the primary objectives
are to understand the opponent (whatever bizarre they may sound and regardless
to whether or not they're wrong) and enrich your vision while winning the
argument is a secondary objective and even happens to be irrelevant in many
cases).

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esotericn
> Just make sure they learn to recognize the value of trans-material assets:
> one can loose their financial wealth in an instant easily, but their
> reputation, skills, knowledge, intelligence, health, psychological capacity,
> inner dignity and freedom of compassion, unconditioned vision and decision-
> making are less volatile.

Your post has good aim but I don't believe this is the case. Financial wealth
is relatively trivial to safeguard after a point - particularly more stable
forms (if you own a home outright, in a jurisdiction without property tax,
it's essentially yours).

By contrast, one could wake up tomorrow suffering amnesia, could be hit by a
car, or suffer any number of health ailments that would drastically curtail
those "inner" attributes.

~~~
qwerty456127
Everything may happen but I feel like some things are generally easier to take
with you wherever the life may throw you.

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woogiewonka
I grew up poor and never had a strong desire for material things. I don't know
if growing up poor is the reason for this, but I do know that not having
access to "fancy" things a kid might have access to, made me spend a lot more
time playing outside and keeping occupied with activities. Of course this was
all before I had access to a computer. The moment I discovered Age of Empires,
I had a strong urge to have my own computer.

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roenxi
By the metrics, the most generous person in the world is Bill Gates who has
given away something approaching 30 billion dollars. Maybe there is an
argument that he isn't materialistic, but I think the evidence is against
that.

I suspect they are misusing "materialist" in this context and they meant
"selfish". The link is selfishness causes materialism, not materialism causes
selfishness.

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rdlecler1
There is absolute and relative generosity. On absolute terms Bill is the most
generous. On relative terms even after giving away $30b he still has more
money than he could ever spend so there is really no personal sacrifice made.

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x220
Actually, on relative terms I think he has given away roughly half the money
he has ever earned, which makes him exceptionally generous relatively
speaking.

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ben_w
I stopped calling myself Christian as a result of reading the Bible, but it
does have some interesting takes on this topic:

“””Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other
contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus
wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole
livelihood.”””

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesson_of_the_widow%27s_mite](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesson_of_the_widow%27s_mite)

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x220
I don't think this story is useful because it makes poverty imaginarily
virtuous and downplays the very real benefit of philanthropy. In absolute
_and_ relative terms, Bill Gates is lightyears ahead of nearly everyone, since
he both pledges billions of dollars to charity and also pledges (if I remember
correctly) a majority of his money to charities. Would you mind explaining why
you think it's better for the woman to donate what little she had than the
rich to donate their surplus?

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crdoconnor
It's not depicting poverty as virtuous it's depicting _sacrifice_ as virtuous.

Bill Gates is sacrificing basically nothing by giving away half (or even 90%)
of his wealth. He lives the exact same life of supreme comfort that he did
before.

Weirdly this is one of the few things the bible was actually abundantly clear
about (and it's a pretty good point).

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analyst74
What I realized as I get older and have met many different people, is that,
everyone, is, judgmental. Of course, different people value different things.
Some judge by wealth, some by looks, some by height, skin color, hobby,
manner, education, intellect, family background, job, way you speak, way you
act, etc, etc.

Why are some judgmental criterias more acceptable than others? I mean,
compared to many of the less change-able traits like look, skin color, where
you are from, intelligence, etc, isn't wealth, being acquire-able, a somewhat
more "fair" criteria to be judged on?

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philipov
No, because wealth is not fairly distributed. The biggest predictor of wealth
is being born rich. Looking at only the best case is not sufficient to call a
criterion "fair."

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tuesdayrain
Is anything truly "fair" then? Even people's decisions and actions are
affected by their genetics and upbringing, none of which are really fair. By
this logic it's unacceptable to judge people on anything.

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mcny
> By this logic it's unacceptable to judge people on anything.

Why do we need to judge people at all? If it is simply to feel superior, you
can just make stuff up. "Look at that person with/without an iPhone while I
don't have/have one."

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philipov
IPhone is just a proxy for wealth. I suggest instead, "Look at that pathetic
guy trying to justify evil actions by making wealth at any cost seem like a
virtue."

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tropo
They didn't measure materialism, and very poorly measured generosity.

They had some of the participants journal what they were grateful for, they
paid all the participants, and they suggested that participants make a
supposedly anonymous donation of cash to an unknown cause.

Keeping the money is supposedly materialism. No, it is not. Spending the money
on frivolous status symbols might be materialism, but that wasn't measured.
Keeping the money long-term, or spending it on something of importance, is
financially responsible. Giving the money to an unknown cause (might even be
an offensive cause) is foolhardy.

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exo762
Now, what that tells us about action in opposite direction? How to spoil the
kid? Tell it that he should feel no gratitude because wealth distribution is
random and that hard work, merit, or discipline matter.

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avmich
> According to research, materialism has been linked to a variety of mental
> health problems, such as anxiety and depression, as well as selfish
> attitudes and behaviors.

It would be interesting to many here, I suppose, to find details of such
research. Also comparisons of problems caused my materialistic world view
versus idealistic world view could be interesting.

However we may easily trip into religious disagreements here, which are both
burdensome and seem to be quite outside of the YC area. May be we best leave
this topic undiscussed here?

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tetromino_
> comparisons of problems caused my materialistic world view versus idealistic
> world view could be interesting

Materialism ties your happiness to the state of a vast and unfriendly external
system that you, particularly if you are a child in a non-wealthy family,
cannot control. Suppose one day materialistic instincts - manipulated by
advertisers and wealthy, high-status peers - inform you that you ought to
acquire an expensive Thing to maintain your status and sense of self-worth.
Your parents are unwilling or unable to provide the Thing for you. You, as a
young person, cannot earn or save enough to buy the Thing on your own. As a
result, you become unhappy. The situation repeats frequently, as materialistic
instincts then go on to tell you that you ought to acquire Thing_2, Thing_3,
etc.

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Swizec
I don’t know about that but my parents always said: Money doesn’t bring
happiness, but being unhappy in a Porsche sure as hell beats having your old
clunker break down on the way to pick up your kids from kindergarten.

Money solves problems. Fewer priblems makes you happier.

~~~
smileysteve
> Porsche

> Fewer problems makes you happier.

Ironically the "old clunker" is likely to generate fewer problems that cost
less.

I recently had someone complain to me about getting their newer BMW serviced
at service centers; I told them you could always buy a 10 year old car that
you could take anywhere; like me.

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Swizec
The problem is when your choices are “Do I fix my car or buy groceries this
week”

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anonu
tldr: get your kid to express some gratitude. Eg: reflect around the dinner
table and be thankful for the food.

~~~
lihaciudaniel
I will agree so, since I discovered this and how this and positivity affect my
perception I practice it daily like a meditative practice . basically it
prolongs your instant gratification.

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xor_ax_ax
My 2 centidollars: Consistent boundaries and "no" to almost everything.
Dumpster diving, second hand stores and DIY maker craft_ship. Resourcefulness
over new and shiny. Occasional extravagances where it makes sense.

