Personal blog of christian
writer & fallible mom
Katy McKenna Raymond
in Kansas City, Missouri
Katy is represented by
Greg Johnson at
WordServe Literary
Read more Katy at
LateBoomer.net
Recent Posts
- Try
- Becoming Brenda Starr
- Off Beat
- Scattered
- That’s It
- So I’ve Finally Signed With An Agent. Now What?
- The Spoon
- Sciatica
- Sweetheart
- A Woman’s Train of Thought Has No Caboose
- However much we own, we are all still living on borrowed time
- After all, when restaurants shrink portions, they don’t shrink prices.
- As with everything in life, balance is key.
- Slow down, you move too fast…
- Yeah, I know. I have issues.
Syndicate
E me at katy @ ngenius.com
Targeted Observation
Here’s something else I’ve discovered: When I’m wrapped up in a consumption-based lifestyle, a casual shopping trip—even if I don’t have any needs or any particular wants—is always justifiable.
Why? Because I’m a consumer, that’s why! And there might be something “out there” with my name (or my husband’s name, depending on who the card was issued to…) on it, waiting to hear the pitter patter of my little feet as I make my way across the crowded store to the purses, or jewelry, or shoes, or books, or whatever.
In other words, the trip justifies the time. If my identity largely depends upon the hunting and gathering of more stuff, then it is my consumeristic DUTY to shop—even if it turns out to be only window shopping. There’s no denying, though, that when I’m in accumulation mode, nothing feels like more of a let-down than coming home empty-handed. It makes me feel like a slacker.
On the other hand, when I determine not to be an uber-consumer, but to truly only purchase that which I can describe as necessary, something crazy happens. If I wander into, let’s say, Target, because, let’s pretend, they have the cutest pair of leather big-toe-peeking-out-like-the-forties dress shoes EVER for $19.99 and I HAVE to see them up close and personal—well.
If I’ve already decided not to buy shoes because I really don’t need shoes, and then I spend upwards of 30 minutes looking at shoes, including three aisles of cute clearance priced shoes which I don’t need even if they ARE $4.39, I end up feeling like I’ve just LOST a half hour of my life that I could have spent, oh, I don’t know—finishing my novel.
So, then, to sum up: For me, it’s not just about not buying stuff I don’t need with money that has another more important claim on it. It’s also about not spending time behaving like a consumer, when my time also has a more important claim on it.
I am a slow learner, folks. But I’m allowing myself to learn a few things I’ve never been open to until now.
What I do with my money and with my time expresses my core values, unless perhaps my consumerism has stunted my development—like crack to a twelve-year-old—so that I don’t actually have any important values at all.
Sometimes I think we hunt, gather, work long hours to pay for, pay off, sort, maintain, store, and ultimately sell in a garage sale all this stuff in order to avoid facing what really matters, both in this short life and in the next very, very long one.
Or maybe it’s just me.
- Hi Katy,
What a great post. You always get right to the heart of the matter. So many people today rest their 'values' in their stuff, not even knowing what their real values are. I hope more people will soon 'wake up' to the realization that life is so much more prescious than the petty material things they own.Posted by Mary Briggs on 08/01/06 at 08:27 PM - Nicely put.
We talked about this in SUnday School class last week.
One observation was if we studied our checkbook and daytimer, what would it say about our priorities?
Sometimes not a whole lot of good, in my case.Posted by Susan on 08/03/06 at 04:19 AM - i agree with you about the avoidance factor, katy. great point!
Posted by lisa on 08/03/06 at 10:51 PM
- Today, I went out from the hotel to get some fresh air and momentarily wanted to shop. But then, I really felt that it's a waste of time.. my husband told me not to be too hard on myself, but somehow, our life is redeemed by Jesus on the cross and wasting time (like watching tv shows that i've watched before) seems hard to justify...
I ended up blogging christian cartoons and reading my blogrolled sites, including yours. :)Posted by Mei on 08/19/06 at 03:14 PM
