The word
stuff has always intrigued me. When we lived in Tennessee, one of the Nashville malls featured Louie Anderson, the comedian, in their ads. At the end of the ads, the camera focused on him standing there, and he said, "Hickory Hollow Mall. Just more
stuff!" I wondered then about our role as consumer - and the fact that the mall people thought that word
stuff would excite us so much that we would jump out of our chairs and head for their stores.
Today, I looked up the word
stuff. It has several definitions, of course, but this was the one that caught my eye (from GuruNet):
- Informal.
- Unspecified material: Put that stuff over there.
- Household or personal articles considered as a group.
- Worthless objects.
How appropriate! Is that our goal in life - to accumulate more stuff? Nothing specific, nothing of value - just
stuff. It's all so enticing, so tempting, so available. And we never can get enough! There's always more out there - a newer model of something, a different color of something...it's on sale...it tastes good...I work hard for my money and I deserve to buy things...
How much do I need? How much do I cherish?
They say it's much easier to prevent weight gain than to lose excess weight. And it's much easier not to buy the "stuff" and bring it in the house than to figure out how to get rid of it once you've paid "good money" for it. Oh well - we start the journey from where we are now. That's all we can do!