as i step onto the metro i always look around at my fellow DC commuters. and feel some sense of belonging as I'm sure I feel similarly to many of them: tired, not exactly excited to be going to work. when I get to work I sign into my computer, answer my daily security question (the gov is strange), open my email, and begin the sorting/reading of the morning batch of messages while I drink my coffee....oh wait. no, I don't drink coffee.....I almost feel like everyone else. and then remember that I'm not. apart from being that I am uniquely me, I also am not like the crowd of the general population of the world, or even DC. I think at times I am tempted to try to fit in with the crowd cuz it seems like the logical thing when you are in it....but then again what good comes from pleasing the crowd? not much. a sense of belonging only lasts as long as the trends that you are following...which is like a matter of minutes it seems like these days.
I then consider on the fact that people have been celebrating Christmas for thousands of years, and the crowd would tell me that I need to have great aspirations for expensive gifts to both give and receive and if I'm anticipating not receiving those gifts, I should just buy them for myself....because obviously that's what life is all about: getting new things....
but it seems no matter how many new shoes or cute sweaters I buy, I can never have enough. it seems no matter when I buy a new phone or how cool the TV I have is, there will always be one better and newer. how exhausting it is to feel never satisfied! no wonder everyone looks tired all the time.
I would like to submit that the only reason we think we need all these things is because the people who are trying to sell them to us infiltrate our minds with flashy images and tell us that we need them.
hmmm....we always reject those who try to tell us what to do and cry out against dictators who attempt to control their subjects, and yet isn't this scarily similar?
I'm not saying all media or advertising is bad, it's a way to promote messages to public audiences that generally wouldn't hear them otherwise, in fact the church uses it widely and what success has come of it!
however, perhaps we are too prone to following the crowd and giving into materialism....perhaps our country would not be in so much debt we lived a bit simpler.
I'm no expert and lest my thoughts come across hypocritical, this is something I am working on myself.
so here I go, trying to be more simplistic and happy with who I am and what I already have, in spite of the environment around me. wish me luck cuz it's not as easy as it sounds. :)
along those lines, Saturday was the first day of Hanukkah and in the midst of my emails this morning was a message from the Jewish Affinity Group wishing everyone a happy Hanukkah and inviting all to learn more about the holiday, which was described as: a celebration of the triumph of light over darkness, purity over compromise, and spirituality over materiality. YES. amen...I gladly celebrate that too. so Happy Hanukkah!
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