It's only December 7th, and I can already hear it...
"Attention holiday shoppers! There is a 45% off sale on something you don't need! Aisle 5!"
Yes, it is that time of the year again. The time of the year when kids get what they asked for, and parents feel the budget crunch even more. However, even the kids don't stay happy. They play with their holiday presents for maybe a month or two, then it gets shoved in the back of the closet, packed up right next to last Christmas' tennis shoes you swore you would wear, but never got around to wearing. I am a teenager on the North Shore. This scene is all too familiar.
I noticed this occurrence before, yet I haven't been able to put it into words until after reading Thoreau's Walden. He talked about the difference between the "need" and the "want" for something. He talked about using only the essentials to survive. The movie that we watched in AS put it as "Un-cluttering his life". I could not agree with Thoreau more. We are bred into the thought that bigger, greater, and more is better. We complicate things, and therefore, we are unhappy a month after Christmas, when the material object we used to fill the void in our lives has lost its lustre. We have a need for more "stuff" because we want to be happy. The obvious question is then: why are we so sad?
I think it is because we have lost ourselves in our routine. Have you ever noticed how nice a half day (like the one last Friday) is? We get to breathe, and see a new side to the 3 and a half hours that we usually spend in school. We tried something else. Another example is the typical "north shore soccer mom". You usually don't see these people happy on a regular basis because they are genuinely bored with life. They spend each day waiting for something exciting to happen, go to bed unhappy, and start the day over again. So then they say to themselves: "I bet that brand new tennis racket would change up my routine!" So they go and purchase it, and it soon takes a back seat to the next tennis racket they buy five months later. The amount of money we spend to make ourselves happy is ridiculous. Is there an answer to this vicious cycle of discontent? Perhaps we will find out in Walden...
Does money buy happiness? The guy in the picture sure seems like he digs it...
1 comment:
Great post Chip!
You really provided a new perspective to the reason people are unhappy and get bored with their gifts so easily. While some people may argue that people become bored with presents as time passes because the items simply become boring, you provided seemingly accurate information as to why this happens. According to Thoreau, if people are given a gift that is needed, it probably will be used for a long time, however, since on the North Shore many people have all their needs fulfilled already, most people seem to resort to unnecessary gifts for the holidays. While people may think this would solve any issues, a material item could never make someone happy. According to Emerson, the only person that can make someone happy is themselves. So maybe this year for the holidays, instead of asking for an unnecessary item, people can become happier by getting in touch with themselves.
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