Colin Wright Quote on Possessions and How They Possess Us If We’re Not Careful

“Our possessions possess us.  All the things I owned kept the back of my mind activated.  I used to sit around and feel weighted down by all the stuff in my life.  I’d worry about everything I had, thinking ‘I’ve got this much, so now I need more – I need to level it out: I have the TV, so I need the DVD player; I have the garage, so I need a nice car to fill it; I have this, so I need that.’  It’s a never-ending cycle, a cold war with yourself.”

Colin Wright, via Everything That Remains

Beyond the Quote (333/365)

You know that feeling you get when you’re too excited to focus on anything else except for the thing that you’re excited about? Yeah, that was me a few days ago as I rushed home to unbox the new phone that had finally been delivered. I knew that I had responsibilities that needed responding to, but I decided to let the excitement sweep me away instead. Or maybe it just swept me away and I like to pretend that I “let” it. None-the-less, right as I was unboxing my new phone and getting everything set up, lo and behold, what happens next? My computer breaks down.

That’s right. Without even so much as an hour to enjoy the newness of my phone, my computer freezes and decides it doesn’t want to restart past the, “black screen of death.” Oh, the irony. One thing bought new and immediately another becomes old. One thing gets fixed and another becomes broken. One thing goes right and another goes completely wrong. This, as demonstrated in that very pointed series of events, is the hamster wheel of consumerism that keeps all of us running round and round in a never circle of, well, consuming.

Usually, these types of occurrences happen over a more extended period of time and are less noticeable. You buy something new and, a few months later, something else becomes evidently old. You fix up one device and, after a year or two, another device breaks down. You have a nice streak of things going right and, only after a while, do you start to experience a streak of things going wrong. But, when it all happened so suddenly for me, it reminded me of the circle that so many of us are unconsciously consumed in.

And how could we not be? Things are changing faster today than ever before. Technological advances make the hamster wheel that we’re in seem more important and urgent than ever before. And, coincidingly, it only seems like the wheel is spinning faster than ever before because of these continuous advances. There’s almost this feeling that if we don’t keep up our pace, then the hamster wheel will sweep us up, flip us upside down, and carry us round and round into a whirl of defeat. But, here’s what we have to remember: WE are the ones spinning the wheel.

Remember when you used to laugh at hamsters for getting swept up and thrown in circles by their running wheels? …Well, who’s laughing now? The wheel only spins so long as we choose to run in it. And furthermore, the wheel only spins as fast as we push it to go. We can slow down our wheel any time we want. And we can also get off of our wheel with just a simple step to the side. As much as we might feel like we’re trapped, the reality is that the wheel is uncaged.

Of course, we’ll have people in our ear telling us about why we should be going faster. And we’ll have media bombarding us with messages designed to increase our desire. And we’ll have things in our lives that are obviously outdated and are underperforming compared to what’s out there. But, here’s the crazy part: we don’t have to listen. You are actually in charge of what you subject yourself and your desires to and you can choose to listen to a different kind of message that speaks a different kind of truth.

Because the reality is, it won’t be long until my brand new phone is outdated and underperforming again. And it won’t be long until I start hearing the volume increase in my ear about why I should do something about that. And if I continue to subject myself to that message, then that message is what I will continue to hear and act on. Unless, of course, I get off the wheel and choose to play a different game. There is no winning in a running wheel—there is no finish line. That’s the reality. So, why play that game? Why not play a different game that asks a different question? Rather than rip your hair out about how you can keep up—why not ask yourself how you can get out, instead?

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