You Are Not Your Stuff

 by: Clyde Dennis

We humans are a funny, funny breed. We spend our entire lives working and working and working to acquire ‘stuff’. We buy and surround ourselves with the biggest, fanciest this or that when all the while what we really need and want is something you can’t buy anywhere. The thing we all spend our time doing is looking to experience a feeling of significance. It seems most of our actions are rooted in and motivated by our desire to either gain significance or maintain the significance we believe we’ve achieved. I believe that if you take a hard look at what motivates the majority of your actions you’ll begin to see that this is true. You want to feel like you count. You want it to matter that you’re around.

Here’s some news... You are not your stuff. Stuff doesn’t make you significant. You’re not any bigger because you have a big house. You’re no more significant because your car is fancier than your neighbors. Oh sure, these things may help you feel better for a while, but over time the illusion is broken down. Just like an illicit drug, the stuff makes you think things about you that aren’t necessarily true and once the high wears off you’re right back where you were before the trip. Now don’t get me wrong. Having bigger, better, nicer stuff is not a bad thing, it just needs to be understood and kept in perspective. It needs to be remembered that this stuff does not make you you. What makes you you are the things that you really can’t even see or touch. Things you can only show off, ironically enough, by being you. What makes you you is the way you feel when something happens that makes a REAL smile wash over your face. One of those smiles that your whole body gets into. What makes you you is the size of the smile in your heart when your child falls asleep in your lap. These things that make you you cannot be bought in any store. Not even a Wal-Mart Super Center. (That’s about the only thing you can’t get there though.)

Your are not your stuff. That’s what I stopped by to tell you this week. You’re much more than your stuff. Sometimes that seems to gets lost in the shuffle. If you’ve been busy chasing and trying to acquire things I’m hoping you’re starting to realize things are a poor substitutes for the real stuff. Nothing can replace the feelings. Stop trying to buy your way to the feelings you want. Save your money. Just FEEL.

Maybe who ever said "the best things in life are free" was right...

Just a little something to think about.

Thanks for sitting with me.

Live some. Love some. Learn some. Everyday.

C...