Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Meditation: Treasure

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
~Matthew 6:21-21
As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.
~Proverbs 23: 7
  I've been thinking a lot about materialism and consumerism recently.  I wonder why I love to have so many things, and why I spend so much time wanting things and buying things and worrying about things.  It's almost like an illness, like an addiction.  Because I know that these things don't really make me happy and that tomorrow it could all disappear in a fire or flood or tornado.  I know that my real treasures are the people in my life, the experiences that I've had, the things that I've learned, the service I've rendered.  But I still find this attachment to things and I don't like it.  I really don't.  I don't want to be defined by my things

This is going to be a difficult habit to break.  I need to train my mind to focus on how I can spend more meaningful time with the people in my life, rather than what I need to pick up at the store, what clothes look cute now, what home improvement to tackle next, etc.  I want a pure heart, one that is full of love, not covetousnous.  I know this is a simple thing, but it is proving more challenging than I had anticipated.  How do you do it?

5 comments:

Unknown said...
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Ye Stewart Clan said...

I do not have the answer. If you figure it out please let me know! But I loved Elder Uchtdorf's quote of Da Vinci that "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." So true. So true.

MaurLo said...

This is a hard one for me! Nicely written, and I'm going to work on this as well.

Esther said...

I think sometimes I feel like I am the only one that feels this way. I guess for us it is because we still are living like we were in college and it would be nice to finally have real things (like a real couch). I have been trying harder to not buy, or want things lately. It is so hard, especially with all that is available on the internet. you can shop with the click of a button. We have found that just reorganizing what you do have and seeing it in a different way, can make a huge difference.

eileen said...

I have been seeing/hearing a lot about people who do a "no spend" month. They set a very strict food budget for the month (and of course pay all the other normal bills) but then buy NOTHING ELSE, unless is is absolutely necessary.
The people who have done it, really seem to advocate the idea. They remark on all the money they were able to put away into savings at the end of the month. I imagine that it would also help you to appreciate all the things that you DO have, help you to focus or more important things and free activities.....And then who knows, after a month of fasting, you could always used the saved money to buy something really fun as a reward.

I don't know if I would ever do this, but it could do the trick :)