Fact: there are 361 different types of yoghurt at my local supermarket. I know because I’ve counted them.
There are 994 ways to buy chocolate and 1556 types of alcohol to quench my thirst for happiness. There’s a choice of 581 ready meals for those who lack time and skill to cook. There is pre-grated cheese, pre-mashed potato, frozen omelette, pre-packaged salad, peeled oranges and ready-peeled hard-boiled eggs.
The materialistic world has bent over backwards to give you everything you ever wanted, and much more besides.
Here’s the thing: When life’s laid out in an amazing technicolour of abundance, what’s a person supposed to do other than gorge?
Materialism is so moreish and consumption is its most obvious strategy. Look around at those chasing more; people eating more pizza when they’re already full, teenagers downloading more data, lonely people hooked on their laptop, workaholics toiling longer… and ask yourself, is it working?
Is the best strategy merely to avail yourself of everything simply because you can?
The emptiness, it’s not lack of stuff.
Amid the Googling, goggling and ogling, eventually, it dawns that the missing piece in your life is most probably you. Yes, you are lacking you!
Being happy with who you are. Being happy with your lot. It’s called contentment and it’s a kind of magic.
Because this is how it works. We’re not suggesting that buying stuff is a bad thing to do. If you plot income and happiness on a chart, at no point does ‘having more money’ make you less happy. Buying stuff doesn’t make you unhappy. But the relentless pursuit of more – that will make you unhappy.
Knowing when to stop is crucial. Learning to be content with what you already have means you can quit the chase.
Quitting the chase – THAT will make you happy.
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