Simplicity Is The Mother of Content

I have learned that the more I have, the more I own, the less content I am — I adopt a mindset of ‘the next big thing’ and ‘never enough’ and it robs me of focusing on the meaningful things, the ones that truly matter.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

I can shamelessly say now that I was a very jealous child (I say shamelessly because, in the past, I would have been too proud to admit it). When I was a kid, I remember always looking at what other kids had and wishing so badly one day I could have it too, to then seeing another kid with something different the next day and now wanting to have that instead. I carried that jealousy into my teenage years, and it left me with this sense of lacking, of wanting ‘things’ to feel happy. But what I hadn’t learned at that time was that the less that I tried to convince myself I ‘needed’ something, the more content I could be.

Today, we are bombarded by ads and commercials showing us the ‘next big thing’ — for example cell phones. To me, those commercials are pretty ridiculous, and the amount of money these luxuries are sold for is astounding! Another thought that comes into mind, now that I am more conscious of my spending is: how is someone able to afford a one-thousand dollar upgrade every few years…