The cycle of more
Have you ever noticed that the more you have, the more you want? And the less satisfying what you do get seems?
I’ve noticed this especially with eating out: the more I eat out, the more I want to eat out. It would be easier for me not to eat out at all than for me to eat out in moderation. At first I thought that this was because I might be addicted to the preservatives you find in food (which is still probably true) but I think there’s more to it than that. I think that we get caught up in the cycle of more. Things normalize, and suddenly what was special before is just ordinary, so we want more to make our lives interesting again.
You see this with kids who are used to getting stacks of gifts for Christmas and birthdays. They tear through the pile of presents and announce “is that it?!” instead of feeling grateful and happy for the gifts they’ve received.
People call kids who behave like that “brats”, but maybe it’s not so much that they’re brats — maybe it’s that they just say what we all think now and then: Is that it? Is buying the latest and greatest TV/car/cell phone/dinner out/whatever all there is to life? If getting what we think we want isn’t enough to satisfy us, what is? So we go in search of more, better, snazzier.
Maybe what we need to do is the exact opposite: go in search of less, so that we have the ability to cut through the mass of too much to appreciate enough.
When I briefly went on a very low-fat diet for health reasons a few years ago, I couldn’t even begin to describe how good a pat of butter spread on some wheat toast tasted. It was AMAZING. It was no longer ordinary. I really enjoyed every bite of that toast. And isn’t that what life’s really about? Enjoying what we do have, and being present, instead of spending our time chasing the endless more?
June 26th, 2007 at 7:04 am
That’s a really good point about the kids and presents. Darling and I have always been horrified to watch our niece and nephew tear through a Wal-Mart’s worth of toys every Christmas. Not only was it putting their mom and dad into serious debt, but we were certain the kids would grow up to be consumerist brats. We were put in our place when our niece declared that she wouldn’t be accepting presents for her 13th birthday, but wanted her friends to donate to the local SPCA. The next year her strapped parents hoped the kids wouldn’t notice Christmas was a little “small,” and were amazed when the fewer, more carefully chosen gifts had a far greater impact. I think you might be totally right; some kids we identify as brats are starving for something more from life that isn’t material, but they don’t know how to ask for it.
June 26th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
I totally agree with you! I always want more of something whenever I get a little. If we learn to simplify our lives we will be happy with what we already have. Look at Paris, she said she was happy just to have a pillow in prison. When she’s at home with her money she probably can’t get enough of it! ;)
June 29th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
Wow. What a great post.
I love what you say about going in search of less, so that we can appreciate “enough.”
As far as I can tell, it’s going to be a lifelong journey for me.