It\u2019s so easy to get sucked into this material world. The world of bigger, better, newer. It\u2019s so tempting to always want more and it\u2019s so hard to ask yourself, \u201cdo I really need it?\u201d<\/p>\n
I have a friend who has sold her soul to stuff. She constantly wants and everything revolves around name brands. She has to live in the best part of town, her kids have to wear all the designer cloths, she has to drive a big name car. She asks first where your outfit came from before she decides if it is nice or not. She complains about how much she spends a month but is horrified when I suggest a less expensive alternative. \u201cMy husband would never wear shoes from Nordstrom. He only wears Ferrigamos.\u201d She is never satisfied. She is only impressed by the price tag and the name brand and the image. I watch her in her quest for stuff and I have to shudder in part revulsion and fear because sometimes I see myself for her.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t want to sell my life for money. I don\u2019t want to spend nine hours of my day just so I can go out on a weekend and buy more stuff that I\u2019ll never use and never be satisfied with. I don\u2019t want to drop my kids into daycare when they are 6 weeks old. Money is great. You can get a lot of things with it, but I would rather have my time and my sanity than a stressed out life. But it is so tempting and it is so hard to be happy with what you have.<\/p>\n
She saw my house and turned up her nose. \u201cHow can you live here?\u201d she asked me in horror. \u201cWhat is it, under 1500 square feet? I could never stand a kitchen\u00a0that<\/em> small. I need at least 3,000 square feet you know.\u201d And I found myself blindly agreeing with her that yes, my kitchen was way too small and I couldn\u2019t wait to move somewhere bigger. But after she left, I had to ask myself, why do I need a bigger kitchen? I mean, mine works just fine. It has all the appliances. Sure, it doesn\u2019t have the island or miles of counter space but it suits my lifestyle. I mean, really, it is enough.<\/p>\n So now when I talk to her, I use it as a sort of grounding test. I watch her scramble through her life of image is everything and I chant to myself, \u201cthat is what I don\u2019t want to become.\u201d I love coming home and eating dinner with Kevin. I love playing with my dog and loving the cats. I love having weekends free to just enjoy. I don\u2019t ever want to give those things up for more money. It just wouldn\u2019t be worth it. So I guess that means I\u2019ll never work at some swanky big firm or live in a 3,000 square foot house with a kitchen island, or have a prestigious zip code.<\/p>\n But you know what? That\u2019s just fine with me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s so easy to get sucked into this material world. The world of bigger, better, newer. It\u2019s so tempting to always want more and it\u2019s so hard to ask yourself, \u201cdo I really need it?\u201d I have a friend who has sold her soul to stuff. She constantly wants and everything revolves around name brands. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chrissie"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Kqhb-4a","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=258"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1258,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions\/1258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}