So going off my last post which ended with the question “How do we tie ourselves to things?” Remembering these “things” are only temporary and can be either materialistic or immaterial…
You’ve probably heard the expression: “Be careful about your possessions or your possessions will end up possessing you.” Well that is basically what we see happening all the time. Whenever we buy or use or rely on something to achieve happiness, imagine an invisible string shooting out from that “thing” and attaching itself to your soul. So that new car, house, relationship, job, watch, place, or whatever it is for you- it always does the same thing: it exerts a “claim” on you!
We grow up and by the time we’re teenagers we already have hundreds of these strings coming out of us- attaching us to all of those objects. And so we begin to live like a puppet. Our freedom to act in ways that align with our deepest beliefs are restricted to the point where there’s really not much freedom at all. What makes it worse is that we don’t realize it, we’re blinded by all the “things.” We are puppets that don’t even know we are puppets. Atleast Pinnochio knew he wanted to be a real boy!! Now, don’t mistake what I’m saying. Not all things are bad. Some strings are good, some even neccessary. Not all acquisitions are bad. “Things” can be good and there is a place for them in life. Like our health and careers, it’s not that these things aren’t important….It’s just that our priorities are screwed up! Instead of spending 75% of our time on what will really make us happy, and 25% on “things” we tend to do the exact opposite. Most of what we do is about obtaining money, homes, cars, clothes, wine, women, (or men), gadgets, etc.
All i’m trying to say here is that all these things are never going to make us happy, truly fulfilled. If you took all of those things away, you might see that you’re not really as “happy” as what you were aiming for. Nothing here on earth is going to give you lasting peace. It’s just a simple fact. If you base your happiness on anything that the world tells you is important then eventually you’re going to end up being miserable, no matter how good things seem at the moment. We need to forget about the world’s standard of happiness and remember God’s truth! I really like this quote from C.S. Lewis…this is what I’ll end with…
“If you aim for the earth, you will not get it. But if you aim for heaven, you’ll get Heaven and the earth thrown in, too!”
Blessings 🙂
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