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What is Enough, Anyway?
I bet right about now your credit card bills are starting to roll in from the holidays. Did you buy a lot of stuff? Did you rack up more charges by after Christmas shopping? Do you know when to stop and say “enough is enough”?
In the March 2005 issue of Oprah magazine, several big thinkers were asked to weigh in on the subject of how we often feel that we never have enough. What is enough, anyway? Their answers follow:
Michelle Singletary:
Enough is never enough because there’s all this pressure to buy…..We’re mere mortals trying to fight the marketing machine. We spend too much on stuff – self storage space is one of the fastest growth industries.
Some of her money mantras are:
1. If it’s on your ass, it’s not an asset. Spend your money on things that appreciate in value.
2. Ask yourself, Is this a need or a want? It is unbelievable how often we fail to ask that basic question. Nine out of ten times, you’ll say it is a want and then put it back.
3. Priorities lead to prosperity. I’m talking about focusing your energy and money on things that really mean something to you. Parents say they want to send their kids to college but then spend that money on toys and clothes and gadgets and shoes. You have to match up your priorities to what you want in life. When you create priorities, you set the stage for how to spend your money. That money is then spoken for.
Dave Ramsey:
I’m often asked what the number one money problem in America is right now. It’s that people wander through life like Gomer Pyle on Valium, then wake up at retirement and say, “Shazam! I’m broke.” They don’t have a plan.
You are not entitled to a car or a leather couch, and your grandparents never went to Hawaii, so shut up. You can’t wander through the mall like a drunk in a bar.
If you’re carrying credit card balances and you’re mortgaged up to your eyeballs and you feel like a rat trapped on a wheel, it’s because you’re a rat trapped on a wheel. So have plastic surgery – chop up the credit cards – and make a decision to do something different. Save for things. I want you to go to Hawaii – it’s a beautiful place.
Juliet Schor:
Research shows that materialistic values undermine health and well-being. People who are more materialistic are more likely to be depressed and anxious and to get stomachaches, less likely to have friends – and energy. When parents are materialistic, their children become materialistic.
Vicki Robin:
People who know how much is enough have everything they want and need to live a life they themselves define as fulfilling and meaningful. All their choices – from how they spend their time and how they spend their money to whom they hang out with – reflect that context. For these people, there is wealth beyond money; there is “enoughness”, a stance of material sufficiency and spiritual affluence. They don’t compare their assortment of stuff to someone else’s stockpile to assess whether they indeed have adequate wealth.
Bernie Brillstein:
I did every dumb thing you can do, but still I made money. I bought houses; I had a Bentley for a week. I was a dope. For a while I thought things validated my success. (But I realized) my success validated all my successes. So I got rid of the four houses….
Everyone thinks money is the answer, but happiness is the answer. Money just lets you pick your own type of misery…I am excessive in my own way, but I really think it comes down to the simple things - the dog and my wife.
John de Graaf:
We’ve got the idea that more is always better…I think our priorities are out of whack…We focus on producing and consuming stuff, and we’ve forgotten that all of these other values are losing out: friendships and family, health and civic participation, a future for our children.
George Kinder:
Most of us are so caught in the treadmill of materialism that we don’t recognize what we really want. Our life planning program is a version of financial planning that focuses on what people find most meaningful. Our clients learn what’s really of value to them by responding to the following questions:
1. If you had all the money you needed, what would you do?
2. If you discovered you had only five or ten years left to live, what would you do with your life?
3. If you had only 24 hours left, who did you not get to be? What did you not get to do?
The third question hits bedrock. When people identify what’s profoundly meaningful to them, most of the time its family, community, and integrity or spirit. They don’t worry about having more or enough.
Common threads appear in everyone’s thoughts: priorities, focus, plan, values, spirit, and meaning and fulfillment. Food for thought as you open your mail this time of year.
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My father’s favorite expression was “money doesn’t grow on trees”. I never did see an actual money tree, but I often spent money that fell from that invisible tree. Unfortunately, my children have been picking money from that same tree (I guess it is self propagating). Many of us, me included, have fallen into the trap of “more is better” and “enough is never enough”. In the dental field I was always bombarded by the reps and the consultants with the latest and the greatest and the must haves. And I have to admit I was a born shopper. I often felt like that rat trapped on a wheel described by Dave Ramsey.