What I have is enough

We're continually overwhelmed with and distracted by our stuff. (Living the Simple Life)

We visited friends the other day, who talked about food porn. They love watching cooking shows and reading food magazines. It got me thinking of all the other kinds of "porn" that we take in: house porn (looked at any dream houses lately?), technology porn, even church porn. I helped a friend shop for a computer today. I thought of a million reasons I need to buy an iBook, before I reminded myself: What I have is enough. In fact, it's more than enough. Macs are nice, but I don't need anything more than I already have. What a similarity between porn and materialism, though. It promises more than it can deliver, makes you feel like you need and deserve it, and leaves that unsatisifed feeling after.

Comments

[Brian Mullins]

I should have warned you that that would happen! It's true though. We discussed this in one of my small groups a few weeks ago. We invest so much energy in the pursuit of something (doesn't matter what... it changes weekly), and once we have it, we pursue something else. Remember the closing scene from Steve Martin's "The Jerk"? He is leaving his mansion for the last time and is grasping at favorite possessions. "My thermos...that's all I need..." Most of us have "affluenza" in one form or another. That said, I still like my iBook...

[Rev. Mike]

And I still like the laptop I convinced myself to buy because it makes my life easier for school, and it allows me to use the wireless network I HAD to have to have Internet access upstairs in the bedroom. As a result, I don't hole up in my office, but instead I stay upstairs and work on stuff in bed while my wife watches TV. There you have it ... it gives me a quality of life to which I had become accustomed, and when the previous laptop gave up the ghost, we had quite a conversation over whether I should replace it. I just hope that'll fly at the judgment seat, at any rate. I'm not real hopeful. :(

[Darryl]

I convinced myself to buy a new notebook six months ago, and I don't regret it. It's just sad that I was still tempted to get a new one today ("But it's an Apple," I told myself). Curse eBay for even making it remotely possible.