The one who dies with the most toys is the emptiest....
(Edited from yesterday)
Rick recently ran into my former best friend and her husband and youngest son.
B. and I met in kindergarten, and clear through high school graduation and beyond were best friends. From sharing finger paints, to holding each other’s hair while we puked when we partied too much in high school, through marriage and childbirth, we were right there together. The one thing our friendship doesn’t seem to have survived is their monetary success.
B. has an important job in the billing department of a large hospital, and S. is a big wig in some publishing company. About 4 or 5 years ago, they sold their beautiful little three-bedroom house in a small town and moved to a suburb of one of Kansas’s largest cities, into a brand new 5-bedroom home. They have 3 kids, and I thought they would have ample room there. I was really happy for them. I have never actually seen the house, although I talk to B.’s mom all the time, and she had told me how huge it is. B. and I stopped talking not long after they built the house - I realized that the only time we ever talked is when I called her, and when I stopped calling, we stopped talking.
B.’s mom recently told us they are now looking for a bigger house. Not enough room for all the “stuff”.
(I talk to her mom a lot, and she tells me they don’t come down to see them much because they don’t have the same lifestyle here at her parent’s house that they do at home, and their lifestyle is too important to leave behind. They didn’t come one Christmas because all the presents they bought the kids wouldn’t fit into the suburban, and their kids would NOT be forced to open their presents from them on any day but Christmas!)
They have several vehicles, often trading in vehicles that aren’t even paid for, so in a sense, they are never really theirs. They have all the luxury stuff you can imagine; yet they are always thinking about what they want ‘next’. As soon as they get that, they see something else that someone has that they don’t, and that becomes the new ‘want’.
(Do you know what Rick and I are 'wanting' for right now? Three folding, canvas lawnchairs, so we don't have to sit on buckets when we go fishing! LOL)
I guess I just don’t see the point in never being satisfied. Never having that feeling of being content. What is it about ‘keeping up with the Jones’” that obsesses people? Is it just envy? Is it maybe an insecurity that makes them feel that they have to have so many things to prove their worth?
Right now I have less than I have had since I graduated high school, and yet I think I am more content now that ever. Getting rid of all the ‘stuff’ and just being myself, enjoying what I do have, and what I can share with others, that is what makes me happy. I like that fact that I am working on becoming debt free – which seems to be “Anti-American” these days…
B. and S. seem so far away from the down to earth people they used to be. I miss the friendship B. and I had.
Remember that commercial (advertising some kind of battery I think) with the “plastic” battery operated people? That is B. and S.; plastic, automatic, programmed. It’s like talking to body snatchers, who are living in the bodies previously inhabited by my friends. I actually feel sorry for them. They just don’t get it. I don’t think they would know contentment if it landed in their lap.
Someone once asked one of the men from the big money families (Rockefeller maybe?) how much money it took to make a man happy, and he replied, “Just a little more….”
Rick recently ran into my former best friend and her husband and youngest son.
B. and I met in kindergarten, and clear through high school graduation and beyond were best friends. From sharing finger paints, to holding each other’s hair while we puked when we partied too much in high school, through marriage and childbirth, we were right there together. The one thing our friendship doesn’t seem to have survived is their monetary success.
B. has an important job in the billing department of a large hospital, and S. is a big wig in some publishing company. About 4 or 5 years ago, they sold their beautiful little three-bedroom house in a small town and moved to a suburb of one of Kansas’s largest cities, into a brand new 5-bedroom home. They have 3 kids, and I thought they would have ample room there. I was really happy for them. I have never actually seen the house, although I talk to B.’s mom all the time, and she had told me how huge it is. B. and I stopped talking not long after they built the house - I realized that the only time we ever talked is when I called her, and when I stopped calling, we stopped talking.
B.’s mom recently told us they are now looking for a bigger house. Not enough room for all the “stuff”.
(I talk to her mom a lot, and she tells me they don’t come down to see them much because they don’t have the same lifestyle here at her parent’s house that they do at home, and their lifestyle is too important to leave behind. They didn’t come one Christmas because all the presents they bought the kids wouldn’t fit into the suburban, and their kids would NOT be forced to open their presents from them on any day but Christmas!)
They have several vehicles, often trading in vehicles that aren’t even paid for, so in a sense, they are never really theirs. They have all the luxury stuff you can imagine; yet they are always thinking about what they want ‘next’. As soon as they get that, they see something else that someone has that they don’t, and that becomes the new ‘want’.
(Do you know what Rick and I are 'wanting' for right now? Three folding, canvas lawnchairs, so we don't have to sit on buckets when we go fishing! LOL)
I guess I just don’t see the point in never being satisfied. Never having that feeling of being content. What is it about ‘keeping up with the Jones’” that obsesses people? Is it just envy? Is it maybe an insecurity that makes them feel that they have to have so many things to prove their worth?
Right now I have less than I have had since I graduated high school, and yet I think I am more content now that ever. Getting rid of all the ‘stuff’ and just being myself, enjoying what I do have, and what I can share with others, that is what makes me happy. I like that fact that I am working on becoming debt free – which seems to be “Anti-American” these days…
B. and S. seem so far away from the down to earth people they used to be. I miss the friendship B. and I had.
Remember that commercial (advertising some kind of battery I think) with the “plastic” battery operated people? That is B. and S.; plastic, automatic, programmed. It’s like talking to body snatchers, who are living in the bodies previously inhabited by my friends. I actually feel sorry for them. They just don’t get it. I don’t think they would know contentment if it landed in their lap.
Someone once asked one of the men from the big money families (Rockefeller maybe?) how much money it took to make a man happy, and he replied, “Just a little more….”
posted by Amethyst Rising at 8:23 AM
3 Comments:
I wish we could destroy all money and just live life without it. I think we'd all be much happier and much less stressed in our lives.
You know, the bible says that "the love of money is the root of all evil"... the love of, not money itself...
I just wish we could do away with greed, and the insecurities of people...
Well, they sound like they need to learn something about themselves that no one on Earth can teach them but themselves. Life will show them the path they have chosen better than any person or "system". Eventually, they well see that they cannot take it with them... and eternity is a long time.
You are very special, seeing that the more simple things make for a more meaningful life. For love itself, compassion, is as simple as it gets, and it's the only thing we take with us on our future journeys!
Love you Am!
Jas...
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