I once asked someone why they chose the place they lived. Their answer was simple- it was the nicest place around.
It wasn’t, “I loved the floors, or I loved how open the layout was.” ‘Nicest place around’ meant that it had a certain status symbol attached to it.
There is one thing that can make me quickly become very uninterested in a person. A person that without being asked, throws the things they own into casual conversation.
I’m not talking about a new pair of hiking boots or tech gadget that two people can banter about the features of in conversation. I’m talking about when people mention specific items that are meant to showcase that they are a part of a particular class. In other words, they are keeping up with an invisible ghost. “Keeping up with the Jones” syndrome as I’ve understood it.
As I have written before, some people need to show the stuff they earn because they still probably do not believe that they own the stuff they do.
I have to draw the line at arrogance. Arrogance that is created by what one assumes as society standards of ‘success.’
I think our problem as individuals is the idea that we must always ‘one-up’ someone, or as mentioned above, an invisible ghost we are competing against.
Could that invisible ghost actually be taking form of the person we were once before? The person who could not afford the expensive sports car our guardians could not afford to buy us in high school?
Does it make us shallow to want more, and desire more? Does it force ourselves to have an inner conversation of what purchases stay true to who we are, versus the items we start acquiring that we may not need or want; but what society standards forces our hand to purchase.
The idea of fitting in starts when we are young. The first time you are picked last for kickball, or the first time you’re rejected by someone starts the spiral. You remember the times that you felt beneath the rest of your peers.
That spiral can represent many beginnings of what is to come, but it begins the trend of feeling inadequate or not being of a particular class.
Once we get older, those feelings still may linger. We may not even know they are still hanging out with the other skeletons in our closets.
When we become adults and get the first job that pays us well, we start to elevate our spending. We start remembering the desires we held as kids when we wanted a particular item, and we could not have it.
And so, “I have money, so I can have it,” becomes a motto we repeat to ourselves to justify poor spending habits of the item’s society feeds us of needing to purchase. I am not hating on buying yourself nice things, been there and have most def, done that.
It is the constant desire to try and keep up. Doesn’t it become exhausting for some people scrapping by with an expensive car payment they can barely afford? Exhausting having to purchase only the ‘best of the best,’ because advertisements tell us so?
The bottom line. People will buy what they want, when they want. Some may go into the red trying to keep up with trends or trying to feel adequate. And that is okay. Everyone has the right to feel how they feel, and to buy what they buy.
A question that should always be asked however is, “What does this purchase contribute to my life?”
Danae Decker 