Objective Value: Good or Bad.

[William]

Why do we want stuff?

The Story of Stuff

Is it for "us" or is it for "others" to gawk at? Why do we buy a brand new car, when the one we have has got a good 150 thousand miles on it. Do we really need a television in the refrigerator door. Could we be happy with less, considering most of what we do have has absolutely nothing to do with contributing to our happiness. Now I wouldn’t make that statement had I not seen time after time the un-happiness of those who have "more". Just how hooked are we on "status". Is that all life is about, seeing how much stuff we can accumulate? Check out the above link.
I am all ears. Ha. Thanks for your thoughts.
William

[MITech]

I was in the hospital myself and the quality of life wasn't as great as it was back at home. The food was awful. You would always get bored and there was rarely anybody around. Now that I'm back I've ;earned that I should be thankful for the quality of life that I have now. I can recognize the difference between the hospital and at home quite significantly. I guess the point that I'm getting at is that we can still be happy with less if we can better understand what makes us happy in the end.

[Holiday20310401]

All around me and especially at work, I see customers are never really 'happy'. Not that I can say such things and really know, but customers will come into the store where I work and as a cashier I notice how money means a lot to them. Yes it is important but everybody believes that it is satisfying the ego that makes people happy. It is in people, the idea that satisfying desires are always to be resolved by egoistic reconciliation, and out comes a narrow, predictable stream of actions. And the lack of variation which perhaps is subconsciously recognized by the people themselves is what makes people unhappy, but also not know any better or just choose apathy to change and continue to consume.

For example, I get customers all the time, demanding a refund for a product that may have been sold at the wrong price because our computer system sucks. And this wrong price is usually around a quarter. Sometimes its a penny, and I just love it when adults come up to me (seriously this happens), and demand that extra penny because the item scanned at 100 cents when the sign said 99 cents. So I always keep pennies in my pocket and just hand them over to emphasize the childish situation.

And of consuming, people tell me about coming into a store only to buy a certain product, and instead buy a whole shopping cart without intending to from the start. I think that people just really like money. I like collecting coins, and that subjective value makes people happy. And yet people believe that subjective value is equally proportional to the objective value, so the more one spends the more it is going to make that person happy. There is just no proportion. Our minds were not meant to relate value with money or objective currency.

[William]

Thanks Justin for your handiwork. I appreciate it.
William