{"id":1328,"date":"2022-01-21T11:03:04","date_gmt":"2022-01-21T16:03:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=1328"},"modified":"2022-01-21T11:03:04","modified_gmt":"2022-01-21T16:03:04","slug":"mchappiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2022\/01\/21\/mchappiness\/","title":{"rendered":"McHappiness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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McDonald\u2019s is amazing. 

The chain with the golden arches has been presenting itself as the world\u2019s greatest happiness provider for almost 80 years now.

The original McDonald\u2019s restaurant \u2013 owned by brothers Dick and \u201cMac\u201d McDonald \u2013 opened in San Bernardino, California.  The brothers originally sold hot dogs.  When they switched to burgers, fries, and shakes (and pieces of pie), they attracted the attention of a middle-aged Chicago businessman named Ray Kroc.

Kroc promptly purchased the national and global franchising rights for the McDonald\u2019s brand. 

He never seriously considered changing the name.  \u201cWould anyone really want a Kroc Burger?\u201d he asked.

Even though the popularity of \u201cMickey D\u2019s\u201d seems to have plateaued in the United States, the global metrics associated with this burger joint continue to be staggering.  Consider the following:

Just 30 years ago, there were 12,700 McDonald\u2019s worldwide.  As of this week, there are 39,138.  Between 2015 and 2018, McDonald\u2019s opened a new restaurant in China every day.  A new franchise is launched somewhere on the planet every 14.5 hours. 

Globally, McDonald\u2019s sells 75 hamburgers every second.  <\/em>The company is the world\u2019s largest owner of potato fields and beef cattle.  If McDonald\u2019s were a sovereign nation, it would represent the world\u2019s 90th<\/sup> largest economy.  The so-called Big Mac Index (comparing the cost of that sandwich in different countries) is used by economists to assess the buying power of various currencies. 

It\u2019s estimated that 10% of Americans patronize the Golden Arches every day.  The #1 menu item is the Happy Meal, accounting for 20% of overall sales, which makes McDonald\u2019s the global leader in toy distribution. 

In 1965, the Filet-O-Fish sandwich was added to the menu at a restaurant in a heavily Catholic suburb, since devout Roman Catholics traditionally avoided meat on Fridays.  Ultimately it became a coast-to-coast staple.  In an effort to keep up with changing tastes and values, McDonald\u2019s announced this week that the new McPlant burger will be available in February at 600 locations.  It\u2019s hard to imagine that Ray Kroc ever thought he would be selling veggie products. 

Sociologists tell us that one out of eight Americans will work for the Golden Arches at one time or another.  So far that\u2019s included Jay Leno, Shania Twain, James Franco, NASCAR driver Tony Stewart, politician Paul Ryan, Keenan Ivory Wayans, Star Jones, Sharon Stone, and pop singers Seal and Pink.  The first actor to play Ronald McDonald was future celebrity meteorologist Willard Scott.

On a personal note, despite our last name, my two brothers and I have never been stockholders.  We have certainly eaten our share of Quarter Pounders with Cheese.  We\u2019re also immensely grateful that Mom and Dad did not feel led to name any of us Ronald.  If my brother Bruce had been a girl, Mom intended to name her Wendy \u2013 which would have made her a fast-food branding phenom.

McDonald\u2019s continues to change the way the world thinks about food and happiness.

Which ought to give us pause.

According to Sponsorship Research International, 88% of the world\u2019s citizens can identify the logos of Coca-Cola and McDonald\u2019s.  In less than a century they have become the most successful brands in human history.

By contrast, only 54% of the world looks at a symbol that has been around for twenty centuries \u2013 the cross \u2013 and associates it with finding a deeper and richer life by following someone named Jesus.

We have to admit that Jesus didn\u2019t seem to help his own cause.  He told his apprentices they would need to \u201ctake up their own crosses daily\u201d and follow him.  Or to put it another way:  We must give up a life we cannot keep in order to gain a life we cannot lose.<\/em>

A Happy Meal will always seem easier.  And less expensive.  And it comes with a toy.

Our task, on the other hand, is to help others grasp that our deepest hunger can only be satisfied by God.

And the only way we can ever make a compelling case for that is to experience for ourselves<\/em> the happiness that only God can provide.
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McDonald\u2019s is amazing.  The chain with the golden arches has been presenting itself as the world\u2019s greatest happiness provider for almost 80 years now. The original McDonald\u2019s restaurant \u2013 owned by brothers Dick and \u201cMac\u201d McDonald \u2013 opened in San Bernardino, California.  The brothers originally sold hot dogs.  When they switched to burgers, fries, and shakes (and pieces of pie),… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1329,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[251],"class_list":["post-1328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-happiness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1328"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1330,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328\/revisions\/1330"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}