by Jamie L. Brown
“Try this”, they say. “It will make your eyes look younger, your cheeks look rosier, and your teeth whiter. It will hide your cellulite and trim your waist line. It will even make your toilet clean itself!” “Try this!” is written in big, bold, hot pink letters – screaming from the latest magazine cover, the newest product packaging, and the most ridiculous infomercial.
Buy more stuff! Let’s fill up our cosmetic drawers, our bathroom cabinets, our closets, the trunk of our cars, our junk
drawers. Fill everything up because we can’t throw it away. We can’t let go of that false sense of hope – a miracle cream for this, a fantastic spray for that, and a pill to make the world go away. We don’t need endless kitchen gadgets or robot vacuum cleaners. It is possible to bake bread without a bread maker and check the temperature of a roast without an electronic talking thermometer. Filling our houses with unnecessary clutter takes up valuable space in our lives, budgets, and cupboards. Simplify!
Has anyone stopped to consider why we feel a need for most of this “stuff” to begin with? We need eye cream because we
don’t get enough sleep or eat well. We need cellulite cream because we don’t take time to exercise and we stuff our faces
with processed junk that our elders wouldn’t even consider to be food. And that vacuum robot serves to provide us with an extra twenty minutes to spend answering our cell phones and emails, or staring wide-eyed at the latest reality TV show.
Think of the last time you just sat in a room free of doodads, gadgets, and distractions and thought to yourself ”I like my life” or “I’m content with myself.” This should be the primary goal: to aim to be content with our lives instead of raiding convenience store shelves for the latest quick fix, or promise of instant gratification.
There are no quick fixes, only innovative “blankets” to throw over problems so that we have problem after problem and blanket over blanket. That won’t get us anywhere- though we might have more baggage for the trip and smell a little better, depending on whom you ask. It’s time to stop, slow down, and make time for the things that really matter. Breathe deeply, calmly, and consider the simple order of nature and the way things should be in our lives. Just think about it. What do we really need? What is taking up more of our time, energy, and money than necessary.
It is easy to get caught up in a dizzying pace of life. It is easier to ignore problems in our lives and hope they go away than to deal with them. It is much more difficult to be honest and true to ourselves and face life head on, with eyes open, keeping in mind that life is a work-in-progress.
Your life can change, but making that happen is up to you. The next time you are tempted by the monumental claims of an infomercial or product, consider why you believe that you need it. Changes don’t come out of jars, at least not the kind that last. You may discover that it isn’t a true need at all – your life, and your wallet, will be a bit richer
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