Wednesday, August 1, 2018

Why did we accumulate so much things in the first place?

Why?

I had everything I wanted . . .

I never realized before that I already had everything I needed to live a decent life. I kept wanting more and more and never felt satisfied. often we think that our reality is so far removed from our ideal lifestyle that we must have suffered some misfortune along the way. But all that does is make us unhappy. Actually happiness is already with us, then we unhappy it from our feeling while chasing for more things , thinking that things can give happiness.

I'd look around my apartment and sigh.
I don't have a nice leather couch or a spacious living room, and I don't have a big terrace where I can have barbecues.
I don't own a high-rise penthouse apartment that offers a great view of the city I am living in. 
I didn't have any of the things that i thought i had always wanted.

It turns out , however, that the complete opposite was true: I actually already had everything i ever wanted. Allow me to explain.

Take our jobs, for example. We all work at a company that at some point we wanted to join. We went through some screening process and were accepted. Maybe it wasn't your number one choice or the industry that you really wanted to get into, but you needed a job which paid you decent salary. And because there's always been that niggling* feeling deep down that maybe you compromised, you can't help complaining about your work or your boss. You can't help wondering what a career might be like. 

[* nigglecause slight but persistent annoyance, discomfort, or anxiety]

but it's worth remembering that at some point you really wished you could work there. maybe the company culture is not what you expected. maybe your boss is a nightmare, or worse, the whole management is corrupt. Even so, you sent them your resume and showed up at the interview not because you had to, but because you wanted to. so in that sense, your wish to work at that company came true. You must have been happy, even if just or a little while, to receive that offer letter.

The same can be said for where we live. I lived in my old apartment for ten years. It was a great bargain that I've found after searching and searching, and I can still remember the joy I felt when I first moved in. It was located in an area where I had longed to live, and I had been filled with a sense of anticipation that my new life was about to begin. But as the years went by, I started noticing how small and old the apartment was and my dissatisfaction gradually began to mount. Why was I feeling so unhappy when my previous wish to live there had been fulfilled?

The same goes for our personal belongings. Take our clothes, for example. I often felt like I didn't have anything decent to wear. I'd spend my off days shopping and come home exhausted but happy to have found something that I liked  ( even if maybe I'd used my credit card to splurge a bit). Then I'd put on a fashion show in front of my mirror. I would feel happy and proud the next day, sporting my new outfit. There had to have been days like that for all my clothes, so why is it that I now look in my closet and sigh, thinking that I don't have anything nice to wear?

When we look at things this way, we realize that many of our wishes have actually been granted. So why don't we feel satisfied? 

Why do we become unhappy? 

We get used to things
(click here)

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