When thou shalt sit to eat with a prince, consider diligently what is set before thy face. And put a knife to thy throat, if it be so that thou have thy soul in thy own power. Be not desirous of his meats, in which is the bread of deceit. Labour not to be rich: but set bounds to thy prudence. Lift not up thy eyes to riches which thou canst not have: because they shall make themselves wings like those of an eagle, and shall fly towards heaven.
PROVERBS 23:1-5 DOUAY-RHEIMS
When I was a kid, I asked my old man why certain men who worked at the same place that he did had bigger houses, fancy vehicles, and more stuff than we did like swimming pools. He told me those men were "dollar millionaires." They bought all of those things on credit and were laboring hard to make the monthly payments on all of their stuff. They weren't rich but stupid. I made a mental note that day on the phenomenon and have reflected upon it ever since.
Since those days in the 1980s, I have seen much lifestyle inflation among coworkers, family members, and friends. I have never been into materialism, so my lifestyle has remained virtually the same since I was in high school. I never bought a boat, a McMansion, a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, a side-by-side ATV, an RV, and on and on. Those things never interested me. I have also lived long enough to see people lose all of those things to the bank and to the repo man.
I have taken a great deal of flak over the years from the fools who buy this crap. I have had coworkers tell me that I needed to buy a new car. Then, they would ride me about getting rid of my dumbphone for a new iPhone. I am someone who is content to have the material needs met while moving on to the non-material interests of my life. Those non-material interests matter more to me than owning some toys to impress other people that I don't even like.
I am always telling myself that proverb about keeping the knife to your own throat. This is just a poetic way of telling myself to resist all pressures and temptations to inflate my lifestyle. I don't care about those things, but everyone else cares that I don't care about those things. I am going against the mindset and culture of these idiots, and they hate this.
Lifestyle inflation also matters when it comes to the job you work. Because people want to buy things they shouldn't have, this requires a job that pays a lot of money. These are jobs that people tend to hate and require great commitments and moral compromises. A blue collar job making the median income isn't going to cut it.
The final issue is outright dishonesty and theft. I have seen quite a few people ruin their lives with embezzlement and stealing. The thing they all had in common was they liked buying things. Going to prison is a very high price to pay for some stupid toys.
As a corollary to all of this, I have learned that a man should avoid gold diggers like the plague that they are. If a woman insists that you need to seek a better job with a higher income to afford her, dump her immediately. That relationship is doomed.
The antidote to lifestyle inflation is intentional living. You have to decide what makes you truly happy and focus on those things. I like walking, going to church, reading books, writing on this blog, watching birds, and hanging out with my awesome wife. All of these things cost me very little. I don't do these things because they are cheap. I do them because of actual enjoyment. I have a good life, and I am grateful to God for that life.
I don't see the point in buying stuff you can't afford and wouldn't enjoy anyway. I think the pleasure of these things comes from trying to impress people with the fiction that you're rich. It is all vanity. True happiness comes from having trust in God and living a modest lifestyle. Anything beyond that leads to misery and ruin.
