Running after the Joneses

I have always been struggling with this desire for more and I have been known to 'overdo' things either by eating too much, buying too much, catching ALL the sights in ONE holiday..you get the idea. This time, my temptation was in the form of a really nice IT bag.

Conveniently forgetting that I had bought a new bag barely 4 months ago, suddenly all my bags didn't seem as nice as THIS bag. It didn't matter that I didn't need another bag. It didn't matter that I had ten other bags abandoned at home with each new one I got. I just knew I WANTED this bag NOW.

Realised I was reaching dangerous territory when I started entertaining thoughts of asking my mom to buy this bag for me in place of the wedding dowry. As my friend exclaimed when I shared with her my treacherous thoughts: "Har? You mean you are going to carry that bag on your arm when you walk down the aisle?"
Ee pauses to envisage the IT bag on one arm and Ed on the other. *nods eagerly*

My one consolation is that at least I'm not alone in this need for more...was reading this article in Forbes which put a wry smile on my face. Excerpt as follows:

The neighbors threw a party Saturday night. Nothing about the party wasn't fun. They had archery in back for the kids. A raffle to benefit leukemia research. Chips and salsa, fancy cookies and Mexican spiced coffee. The host even tapped me to sneak out and smoke a cigar under the starlight.

Yet I came home troubled, burdened, worried about something that I had difficulty even expressing to my wife. Their furniture, it was so ... so ... nice. The sofa, with its thick embroidered upholstery, shot through with gold thread, that looks as if it came from a medieval French tapestry. The writing desk. The little cabinet. So nice, and so much of it: chairs and love seats and sofas and ottomans and God knows what else. Our furniture, which had been so new when we bought it, suddenly looked threadbare and tattered and completely unacceptable. "We need new furniture," I informed my wife, gravely.

Call it envy. Call it competitiveness. Call it a desire to meet community standards. But the need to keep up with the Joneses both spurs our personal working lives and drives our national economy, and most of us don't realize it. The need to keep up is woven so deeply into our culture it can be hard to recognize.

Hmmm...makes mental note to set aside that covetous heart.