In my first review of the book Life Focus by Jerry Foster, I talked about the difference between success and influence. It's amazing how confused we can get in life. We strive after things that will not satisfy (like success), rather than striving to live a life of influence by being generous givers of our time, money, compassion, and skills to others.

In the same way that we mistakenly pursue an illusion of success, we also pursue material things.

Now, for those of you who think you do not struggle with the American materialistic mindset, you may want to examine yourself a little closer. I consider myself a very frugal and practical person when it comes to buying/owning material things (Some members of my family may even call me cheap... I prefer frugal). But I have noticed that I struggle with the issue of wanting more just as much as the next guy.

Have you ever stopped to wonder where these false financial expectations come from? Of course, the most obvious answer is the media. That would probably be everyone's first guess. But I think there is an even bigger one out there. It is created by our experience portfolio.

Foster says that everyone develops an experience portfolio as they live life. We pull out memories and life lessons from this experience portfolio whenever we need them in order to make good and/or bad decisions in our future. Part of our experience portfolio is living with our parents until we go to or get done with college. After that, we are on our own.

Where am I going with this? I'll use Foster's words:

"We charge into the grown up world ready to grab life by the horns. We see the status, achievements, and possessions our parents and other elders enjoy and say, 'That's what I want - and I want it now!'"

See my point? I think the majority of our false financial expectations come from living with and observing our parents. It's not their fault, they are simply living the life that they are allowed to live with the resources they have been given because of the many years they have had to acquire them. But we see this and create our own sense of discontentment. And, to make matters worse, not only do we want to have what they have but we want to have it NOW.

Christine Dugas of TheStarPress.com wrote about the steep financial hurdles that "Generation Y" will face. She says, "They're called "Generation Y" -- teens and twentysomethings known stereotypically for their coddled upbringing, confidence, opinionated dialogue, free-spending habits and openness to change.... Even before the recession, those in Generation Y -- the latest products of a get-it-now, pay-for-it-later mind-set that has permeated the nation's economy -- faced a range of financial pitfalls as they embraced expensive high-tech gadgets and added credit card debt onto student loans."

I hope that our generation is not remembered for discontentment and impatience. This would suck.

Let's be content with less as we patiently strive to get a little bit more in order to be bigger influences in this world. To start, we need to rid ourselves of our own false financial expectations. Anybody with me on this? Or does paddling upstream not sound fun to you? Let me hear your thoughts.