Blowing It Scenario #86-Materialism.

When What You Have And What You Own, Are Your Identity, It’s Time To Reassess.

Nothing screams I’m happy like making a new purchase. That new house, new car, and new wardrobe will all add up to potentially make you the happiest person on the planet. The bigger the better right? When is enough ever enough? The answer is never. You constantly hear and see it. Heck it’s what keeps our society functioning.

If you don’t buy the latest gadget or saddle yourself with mountains of debt to fund your next home or adventure, we may just fall into utter disarray. This is an over generalization and that is absolutely not the case but it seems that’s how we treat it. We’ll own amazon prime accounts so we can be guaranteed our purchases arrive squarely on time. We’ll pay a small fortune for cable so we can be entertained at night. We’ll buy a new car in order to have that status symbol. What better way to show others how successful we are. We make no mention of how the bank actually owns the vehicle or home you’re in. And how it’s just on loan until the we can actually finally get the money plus interest to pay them back. But boy it’s sure worth all the monthly payments and slogging through that job you hate just to make ends meet.

Advertising is another big part of materialism. It’s primarily what fuels the tech industry. And what is advertising other then a sales pitch to buy what a business is pitching. I’m not above it. I have advertising throughout these articles. What I’m insinuating is we don’t have to give in to it. These purchases won’t necessarily make you happy or whole. We should buy things with the goal of improvement, if its not helpful or necessary, possibly consider what life will be like if you don’t buy that new toy.

Not all purchases are bad purchases and buying a new house or car can be a wonderful experience. Just try not to tie meaning or identity to it. We tend to think if another has less than us they must be more misfortune than we are. We don’t see when another chooses a life rich in experience and foregoes the materialistic. All we’ll tend see is what they have or what they don’t have and we pass judgement because of that. Get rid of that mind frame. Become a producer not a consumer. Live that rich experiential lifestyle, expect less and possibly buy less and you will receive so much more.