Will Smith once said, “Too many people spend money they haven’t earned to buy things they don’t need to impress people they don’t like”. Whatever happened to ‘living within your means’ and ‘prioritising’ what really matters? People today are so caught up in “keeping up” or “proving a point” and “showing off”. It’s actually laughable, because they get stressed earning the money and then stressed spending it. None of it becomes actually meaningful or leads to inner contentment. Women buy designer bags running into lakhs from the latest season’s collection, not because they needs another handbag but because it makes them feel ‘worthy’ when they’re with friends. It’s as if they become less valuable or less important if they were to walk in with something bought off the road. Their worth and value is equated to their material possessions. Men want fancy cars that put enormous financial pressure on their bank balances, and monthly EMI’s become impossible to handle, only so that people who see them for those two minutes arriving and departing from a venue think highly of them. I know many men who say “people will not take me seriously if I drive a ‘lesser’ car”. This disease to impress also involves getting a “trophy” wife, so others will envy you. It doesn’t matter if she’s not the perfect person for you or the perfect homemaker, what matters is other’s perceptions of her and your glee at others’ envy. It’s all so absurd. People compromise on their children’s activities, quality education, and needs because they are so busy impressing “others” with what the same money can “buy” for their own “impression”. Such people that think they ‘have a life’ need to in reality ‘get a life’! They live in shackles and a perception prison, whereas the actual joy of life is in the revelling of simply being ‘you’!
