In Charles Dickens' "David Copperfield" Micawber rightly states "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."
In modern terms, if your living expenses are held below your income, you have a good life. People can always spend more than they make and be unhappy.
Western culture however makes it easy to NOT be happy, as our consumer oriented media focus is on what we DO NOT HAVE, and avoiding the opportunity to remind us of what we DO have.
As people chat around the water cooler, listen carefully about what people are discussing. Are they about how thankful they are, or convering about what they have just bought or intend to buy?
One view is that management prefers to see employees leveraged, so as to motivate them. (I owe - I owe, it's off to work II go), Yet is this motivation or fear?
