Hello again. 
It's been a while hasn't it?
I would like to apologise for my lack of blogging. Following the unprecedented success of the first two posts, I just didn't know what to do from there.
This morning I was having one of those reflective periods where my mind was churning out profound philosophical thoughts with every spoonful of rice krispies. One such thought went something like this:
It's been a while hasn't it?
I would like to apologise for my lack of blogging. Following the unprecedented success of the first two posts, I just didn't know what to do from there.
This morning I was having one of those reflective periods where my mind was churning out profound philosophical thoughts with every spoonful of rice krispies. One such thought went something like this:
We want what we cannot have & we have what we do not need.
After repeating that to myself a couple of times I typed it verbatim into Google to see if I had actually thought of a very thought provoking saying or if I had in fact heard it before and was fooling myself into thinking I'm some kind of philosopher who deserves to be listened to.
Anyway, let's think about what that means for a second.
We want what we cannot have
Okay, fairly straight forward. You see something or someone, be it an item of clothing, a car, or a girl/boy you just met and you cannot have it/them for whatever reason. It's safe to say everyone's been in that position before. The reason might be financial (which it is most of the time) or psychological.
Financial - The new designer jacket is £250 but you only have 69p in the bank. You could save up all your money, work a new job or borrow. People don't apply here, unless your situation involves soliciting a prostitute.
Anyway, let's think about what that means for a second.
We want what we cannot have
Okay, fairly straight forward. You see something or someone, be it an item of clothing, a car, or a girl/boy you just met and you cannot have it/them for whatever reason. It's safe to say everyone's been in that position before. The reason might be financial (which it is most of the time) or psychological.
Financial - The new designer jacket is £250 but you only have 69p in the bank. You could save up all your money, work a new job or borrow. People don't apply here, unless your situation involves soliciting a prostitute.
Psychological - You see someone who you think is 'cool' wearing a certain jacket or sunglasses. You immediately want to buy the same item because you think it will make you like them and subsequently attract people's attentions. It's all about consumerism.
We have what we do not need
Now, you may think 'of course I need everything I have, otherwise I wouldn't have it', but you'd be wrong - if you've ever seen the film Fight Club you may recall Tyler Durden says something like this: "Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need." Safe to say he's anti-consumerism. Perhaps a fictional movie chracter telling us to give a modicum of thought to the purposeless items we purchase for ourselves is more ironic than I first realised.
Now far be it from me to imply every thing we desire is purposeless, I'm merely trying to introduce a different perspective on how we spend our money.
Why do we want things we cannot have?
The answer is straightforward because the questions answers itself. Figured it out yet? People are far more likely to want things they cannot have than they are things that are easy to gain.
Think of a young child who wants to play with their parent's brand new phone when the living room floor is littered with every Disney character imaginable.
What I'm trying to get at here (and excuse me if this blog doesn't seem to be going anywhere) is that when you next see some new designer earrings or shoes, ask yourself 'why do I need this?'
Even if you end up purchasing whatever it is that has caught your eye, it's worth thinking about why you want what you want. Is it really worth it? Will it make you a better person? Will it make you happier? If so, for how long?
I hope you can take something away from this blog - can't say I didn't at least try to enrich your life with some wisdom.
I'm off to eat some nice hot soup because I'm not feeling very well at all, but before I do
I need to use my new Apple iPad to check my Ebay account to see If I have won that Armani watch I've wanted for so long. £250 should definitely be high enough to win it, right?
