Lo and behold, this is the age of materialism on steroids.
All things ching-ching, bling-bling and sip-sip take us to happy places we have never been.
This is the world that red carpet events, eating out at Michelin star restaurants and thousands of social media likes from friends we hardly know is made of. Why not? Money makes the world go round.
Welcome to happiness; the showstoppers, rock stars, the larger-than-life and A-listers’ style. Week after week, the message is: Keep calm and shop until you drop. Well, this is because you can, and that makes you happy.
We are hypnotised by the roaring of our cars, go gaga on those latest smart phones – not forgetting the lavish mansions on the hill.
Materialism defines our life, reputation and success.
So important are our possessions that we have become our cars, handbags, clothes, Brazilian hair, phones, and houses.
If you cannot find happiness, just buy it. It also comes wrapped in gold gift paper if you like – or so we believe. The reality is that countless studies show that happiness found in materialism is as plastic as it gets.
It is an illusion meant to suppress the pain, hurt, anxiety, depression and sadness in ourselves. It hides the darkest corners of our souls. We try hard to fill empty spaces in our hearts with possessions, in the hope that this will fill us with happiness – and the more we have, the more we want.
Enough is never enough. We need to be reminded in Ecclesiastes 5:10 in the Book of Books: Whoever loves money never has enough. Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless.
The contradiction is that the more we chase happiness in possessions, the more unhappy we become. We then get unhappy about being unhappy. The sadness never ends, and our tears just keep on filling buckets.
As philosopher Alan Watts’ backwards law drawn from Taoism explains, the harder we try to be happy, the more happiness slips away. When this happens, happiness in material things become a source of our unhappiness.
Think of the many times you have tried to find love and it keeps on drifting away. Then, voilà, one day at an unexpected event, a funeral, love effortlessly finds you. This is how the universe conspires to grant your wish.
Our negative experiences are the ones that set us on the path of positivity. Only when we accept that we are unhappy, we can be happy.
A better place to find happiness is therefore on the opposite site of materialism. That place is a state of self-acceptance. It is when we are in touch with our reality and become a true version of ourselves.
We learn to be grateful for what we have and appreciate the fact that material pleasures laden with ego, status, insecurities and power will never make us happy.
As the Buddhist saying reminds us, “We live to die, meet people to leave them and own things to lose them.”
So is the story of our happiness.
- Dr Mafole Mokalobe writes in his personal capacity.
