When I was working as an underwriter I made very good money and I was miserable. I bought every object I found appealing and lived for shopping or purchasing something that would give me that momentary happiness of acquiring something. It was always short lived, sometimes it wouldn't even make it out of the car before it no longer made me happy. New clothes, purses, shoes, organizing tools, movies, gadgets, and gifts...gifts galore. I overspent on every holiday, trying to find an extra dime here or there to buy one last thing for anyone and everyone.
My mother had this same problems with objects. She looked for happiness in them and she always came up short. Cleaning out her home has been a chore. I helped some, but with school and work, I haven't had much time. That chore has fallen primarily to my brother. The amount of stuff is overwhelming, even more overwhelming is the amount of stuff with no significant value. I know that my mother had caught the disease of thinking that these items made her happy.
What I have learned is that the more things we have, the more cumbersome our life becomes. I choose to only purchase things that will make my life less cumbersome. If happiness comes from making correct choices, how can we even expect to have those choices when we are weighed down by things that take our money and our time. Things do not make us happy, we do.
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