Hinduism: What Can We Learn?

In my World Religions class, we are reading a section of a book about Hinduism. Not only have I found the topic matter to be incredibly interesting, I have also found a lot of the ideas contained in Hinduism to be very interesting. So far, the chapter has covered two main points: what people want (split up into two paths) and how to get it (split up into four paths). For what people want, Hinduism splits our desires into two paths: The Path of Desire and the Path of Restitution. The Path of Desire is defined as wanting physical things: wealth, sex, food, etc. This path is itself divided into two levels, pleasure and success. What is unique about Hinduism is that it does not tell its followers that these are bad; on the contrary it tells them that if you so desire them, than have them. Be intelligent and moral about it, yes, but fulfill them as much as you would like other than that. If this seems rather wasteful, that's because Hinduism has a very different perspective of time than we do. Because of their belief in reincarnation, one lifetime becomes practically worthless, except as a teaching tool. So, go waste a lifetime on pleasure, enjoy it. But when your next life comes, perhaps you'll realize how empty that life was. And then you'll turn to the Path of Restitution. This is also split up into two levels: a desire to help the community at large, and finally liberation from earthly desires. Each of these levels fulfills people on a deeper level.
While I personally don't believe in reincarnation, I do tend to believe that this attitude towards physical pleasure is healthier than the one that seems to permeate United States culture. Within U.S. culture, there seems to be this idea that if an activity is bad, a teenager should not participate in it, period. This attitude can be found in areas like sex, smoking or drinking. The problem is, when you tell a teenager not to do something, the almost immediate reaction of that teenager is to wonder what that activity is like. And so you get teen pregnancies and a good amount of teenagers smoking. I feel that if the culture took a less aggressive view, we would be much better off, from a health perspective. An example I could cite is drinking in Europe. Because they start at a young age in a controlled environment, teenagers over there are much less likely to binge drink. Trying to squash a teenager's curiosity is never going to be as effective as letting their curiosity prove your point.
Basically, I am finding that Hinduism seems to work much better with natural human desires than western culture does.