Trappings



We seem to be buying what’s free.

I recently read an op ed about a Mexican American runner named memo. At age 46, he is ranked in the top 10 list of marathon runners in his age group worldwide. He came to the United States as an undocumented immigrant about 20 years ago, toiled and worked hard, eventually becoming an American citizen. Even at this age, he keeps getting faster. 

He doesn’t have a gym membership, he doesn’t have a fancy heart rate monitor, a highly curated meal plan or an overpriced fitness instructor. All he needs to run are his legs, a pair of tennis shoes and two rules: work hard and never give up. 

It makes me wonder about things we buy because they are packaged, marketed and sold to us, when they’re truly meant to be freely available to us. 

It seems to me that what people truly seek is ease, peace, freedom from worry and stress, better relationships, and self actualization and fulfillment of some sort. 

The extent we go to achieve and attain these things sometime defeats the purpose and value of what we truly seek. 
We look for peace in the things that bring us stress
We look for satisfaction in the things that diminish us
We look for better relationships in the things that distract us from the relationships that we do have. 
We look for financial freedom in schemes and gambits that drain us from the money that we do have. 
The things we run to for solace become the very things that enslave us. 

Ryan Holiday, in his book stillness is the key explains- we don’t need to get rid of all our possessions, but we should constantly question what we own, why we own it, and whether we could do without it. 

I adopted a new philosophy around purchasing consumer goods. Before I buy something of value, I ask myself a few questions
  1. Does this item make my life easier?
  2. Will this item help create fond memories?
  3. Will this item bring me closer to my loved ones?

Friends, likes, smiles, hugs, family, dreams like other great things in life are free. 

We live in a consumerist culture where we think that more is better. More likes, more followers, more food, more money, more cars, more shoes, more clothes, more jewelry. It is easy to fall in the trap of more, the trappings of easily available items that provide fleeting joy. 

Can you buy happiness?

What good is it for someone to gain the whole world yet lose their soul?

This has been another episode of the Nomad show. I hope you enjoyed it. 

For show notes, visit thenomadshow.com, follow us on twitter @nomadshowtweets

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