However, I have to wonder why gadgets and convenience are the things we use to measure happiness. I'm pretty well connected. I'm married to an IT guy, so we have gadgets galore because that's his "thing". However, I could care less about those things. I don't let being overly connected stress me out. I can switch things off when I don't want to be easily accessible. Likewise, I can turn them on if I want to be. The things that define my happiness have nothing to do with the fact that I can talk to my sister on a web cam from five thousand miles away so much as the fact that I am close to my sister and the rest of my family. I have the best husband a woman could ask for, two awesome dogs, good friends, a positive outlook, and I do what I want when I want. I'm not rich, I'm not poor, but when it comes right down to it, I keep the stresses of living to a minimum by shrugging most of them off and moving on to more important things.

And my parents, in their little town, still have pulse dialing. Push button phones, but pulse dialing.

But, the more I thought about it the more I realized that if we all were content with what we have, innovation and creation would stop. It is simply part of the human condition, and I believe a necessary one.

For example, if everyone was content with the rotary phone, and just accepted that wires limited the use, then cell phones would have never come about. Same with transportation - if no one wanted a better way to get around, we'd still be riding horses.

The other problem is, simply, that life is stressful. People screaming about their slowed internet connection or being cut off by their cell phone may really be angry and frustrated by other things they cannot change or challenge, such as a fight with their spouse or boss, or having spent the morning in traffic. It's the same reason rude customers lash out with displaced wrath against retail employees: because they can't fight back.