Dear Bro. George,
In response to Bro. Michael Atkin’s excellent exhortation (June, p. 216), please permit me to recount this experience:
At age 18, my high school sweetheart and I flew from Wales to Canada. We were newly married, a couple of energetic immigrants, with little money, but lots of enthusiastic optimism.
Our first few months were spent in a modestly furnished, two-room basement apartment. We shared a bathroom with the couple in the adjacent unit. We naturally expected our standard of living to rise. When we moved to a three-room, unfurnished apartment, we needed some furniture. My job in a department store afforded us the opportunity to open a charge account. So we purchased a bedroom suite: bed, bookcase-style headboard, chest and dresser.
A few weeks passed and we realize we have made a mistake. The credit payments represented a financial burden. Would my employer kindly accept the return of the suite, apart from the bed itself? Yes, they would, for full credit. Were we ever relieved! Our next stop was at a used furniture store. That experience taught us a lesson we would never forget.
Many of us are under financial pressure because we are striving to support a standard of living higher than what we can comfortably afford. We want; therefore we buy. This process generates an inordinate amount of stress. We may be investing more heavily in our houses and vehicles than in our homes and families. Not a good idea. Material possessions are of limited value. It is relationships that really count.
I had long known that truth in theory. In my 30s, I experienced its sad reality. There I was, living in a spacious home, in a desirable neighborhood, with an above-average standard of living, in a prosperous country… without a wife, and our two teenage sons without a resident mother. I had been far happier years earlier, in that tiny, two-room basement apartment.
Most North Americans enjoy a material standard of living higher than that known by 99% of the people who have ever lived, anywhere in the world. But we are not easily satisfied. Compare our living standards to those of our grandparents and great-grandparents. Are we more or less thankful than they were? More or less content? More or less stressed? Do we carefully distinguish between wants and needs? Or do we continually strive for that elusive standard of living always a step or two above our present level? That vain pursuit brings no lasting satisfaction.
If we can learn to be more content, to be more thankful, then our load of stress will be lightened considerably, and our service to the Master will be more acceptable.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One