Just across the lake from Seattle, Bellevue grows at a steady pace. Bellevue is emblematic of what America is becoming; a flavorless, high-gloss, empty, wealth center, entirely void of culture. In 2010 The University of Pennsylvania ranked the US 9th and Albania 103rd on a scale according to the average annual income of the citizens of those nations. For all of that difference in wealth, the average Albanian is outlived by the average American by only ten months; and we have to ask ourselves just how good those last ten months of life tend to be.
So, are we buying with our money? Can money buy you family living upstairs, downstairs, in the houses next door, surrounding a shared farm? Can it buy you coffee any time of day with brothers, meals prepared by sisters, smiles brought by joyful nieces and nephews? Almost to a person, the Albanian men I met would move to the US if the opportunity presented itself. Why? Because the average Albanian earns 82% less money than the average American in a given year. We can all recognize the sacrifices we make to have the wealth we do. As I sit here in this $300,000 Starbucks on a plot of land worth $.5 million, I sit alone.
In little over a week I will be back in Albania. I am not trying here to be critical of either system, I am merely curious for the first time about ways in which our system, however adept at gathering wealth to an individual, might learn from a system like the one in Albania. A system which keeps people in poverty, with family at the center and community as the only true essential.
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