I feel like we're all being taken for a massive ride and we're too sucked in to notice.
Starting from such a young age, and increasing as we grow older we are told lies that "stuff" will make us happy.
Money, cars, houses, clothes, gadgets, boats, furniture, TVs, motorbikes, holiday homes...
Did you know how much equipment and toys children need now just to develop normally and survive to adulthood?
Don't forget how much happier you'll be when you use all of those expensive beauty products, inject toxins into your face and then of course when you get old you can just fix up all the saggy bits with surgery.
If you're overweight make sure that you follow expensive diet plans, take a multitude of supplements and you really need to invest in thousands of dollars of equipment to exercise or it just won't work.
Oh, and socially attend all of the greatest parties, hire party planners for 2nd birthday parties, dinners out at the latest and greatest restaurants and of course, if you want to be really happy don't forget to throw in all of the travel to exotic overseas resorts.
Then, once you're working and striving and stressing to pay for all of this, you'll live with the fear that you have to hold on to it all so tightly for fear that you may lose it all! You believe that you're happiness would disappear along with all of the superficial, material items that you own...
Work, work, work, buy, buy, buy, stress, stress, stress, buy, buy, buy, work, work, work.
What would you be left with if it was all gone tomorrow? What if you were left with nothing?
Just you, on your own, nowhere to hide.
Do you actually even know who you are if you take away your possessions and your job? If all of that was taken from you would you still feel like you were worth anything?
What if at the end of your days you look back and realised that you missed so many special, beautiful, simple moments because money was your higher priority?
Marriages are ending in divorce, family units are being broken, the rates of depression and mental illness are higher than ever, Self esteem and the self worth of people is at an all time low, people are drowning in debt...and somehow we still think earning more money and buying more stuff will fix everything!!!
How happy is all that stuff your working so hard for really making you?
I
fell for the illusion, and I ended up with a rocky marriage, a heap of
debt and was feeling pretty low. It was the toughest time of my life. I
felt like I was sliding further and further down into a big black
hole. It not only affected my marriage, it affected my children as
well. I'm so grateful to be able to say that this was a short term situation, however we have a lengthy long term plan to repair what we damaged. I changed a lot of my beliefs and thinking radically. Radically.
There's nothing wrong with working hard and earning good money, but is it the focus and priority in your life? Are your relationships suffering? Are you taking part in addictive, numbing behaviours to avoid dealing with your problems? Do you feel like you need to get the thrill of buying something new to brighten up your day? Is the high of purchasing very quickly replaced with a low of guilt or emptiness? Is your idea of a time spent with the family at the shopping centre or do you simply not have family time at all?
I've been working on my own changes for quite some time now and I would love to share some of the ideas that have worked for me. Of course, they won't suit every situation, and every person, they are just what have worked for me. I'm certainly not an expert!
What I can say though is the ideas come from someone that thought more "stuff" would make them feel like they had their life together, and that more "stuff" would make them feel important, more "stuff" meant they didn't have to face their emotions and mostly that more "stuff" would make them happy...and then learnt the hard way that this is simply not true.
Can you relate to this at all? I would love to hear your thoughts!
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