The key to life is making the best of what you have!

One of the great fallacies of today’s culture is that the path to being happy is solely based upon your possessions. The challenge is that I’m seldom ever content with what I have regardless of my income bracket or status in life? Should my life crisis be after September 9^th when I have to decide whether I keep my iPhone 6 or trade it in for the latest iPhone 6s? Clearly this is not a life changer unless I truly believe that having the newest Apple device is the sum of life!

I just finished listening to a radio program that interviewed the President of Arizona State University, Michael Crow. I was so impressed with Dr. Crow’s response to the numerous questions about the purpose behind pursuing a college degree. He didn’t focus solely on the income bracket of an engineer, lawyer or PhD getting ready to teach. His amazing point was what are you going to CONTRIBUTE to the world? Discover your passion while in college and then do something! So his end point was how are you going to make a difference and count in the lives of others? If you weren’t going to college with this mindset then his point was don’t attend then.

I also just finished a text discussion with one of my older teens that has landed a great post high school job at a hospital as a room cleaner. He too shares my passion for Apple products. His latest pursuit of happiness was through getting his first car. We talked a little bit about the advantage of buying a typical starter car that would last forever and not cost a lot, i.e. a Civic, Corolla, Sentra, etc… Instead he set his sites on what I call a baby boomer type of car that would fit in the BMW, Lexus, or Infiniti camp.

The downside to what happened was that he had to buy from a car dealer that caters to those without credit or those that have bad credit.  So he found his dream car and you could clearly see in his mind that his status in life had grown immensely! He then figured out that his employer could actually finance the car. The difficulty was that the dealer would then be cut out of his high interest rate loan and loses big bucks. The mishap that transpired was that my friend took his car to be serviced and they did a bunch of tricks on him to get even and wouldn’t give his car back unless he paid them something to get out of the loan.

So how do I learn to make the best of what I have and not be a in perpetual lust mode for the better things in life which aren’t necessarily evil? How do I distinguish between possessions that are wants versus needs? It’s true that the disparity between those with resources and those that live on the edge make it difficult for anyone to be content with less! The struggling person so much wants a car that runs and why can’t it be a nicer car. So also the person with means has to get the newer car because nothing less would ever do!

So don’t fool yourself into thinking that happiness can be bought but rather discover the blessing of using to your best potential what you already have! It’s not the ultimate sin to by another car, iPhone or laptop? Conversely are you a saint if you are still using the original iPhone and have a twenty-year-old car?  Hopefully your life will be defined more by your character and commitment to contribute to others then your possessions!