Materialism

In this day and age, enlightenment and spiritual upliftment seems to become less important than acquisition of wealth and power. Inner peace and contentment has become a novelty for these people that they fail to give any sense of importance nor priority to it.  PURSUIT OF MATERIAL WEALTH IS THEIR ONLY PRIORITY! They may acquire it through legitimate channels but some can resort to stealing, coercion, extortion, or blackmail. After acquiring it, they flaunt it to the world like a barbarian king holding the head of a defeated leader and parading it to his troops and then easily dumps it like a 2 dollar whore. It seems that it is their way of compensating for their inadequacies either in their physique or in their egos, much like a high school jock or primadonna obsessed with looks but quite empty "up there". Sadly, it is not restricted to persons fitting this profile, current society dictates that materialism is the NEW road to salvation, a way to instant happiness and gratification. You can see it in media (both TV and print), in top-rated shows wherein they associate happiness to prize money and gyrating women, in malls (specially during sale season), and even in church. Today intelligence is equated to winning game shows or dressing up to look like one. Worse, these ideas were perpetuated by elders and proclaimed as gospel truth! In fact, when you ask a person what are their criteria for marrying a person, very high on the list is wealth. At times its more important than love hence explaining the success of mail to order bride and unlikely inter-racial marriages.
Don't get me wrong, acquisition of wealth IN ITSELF is not bad if done for the sole purpose of improving quality of life or as reward to one's hardwork. It only becomes evil when pursued for the above-mentioned purpose or acquired through the above-mentioned means.