We Americans may indeed be “rich” in material terms, but we suffer from what Mother Teresa calls a poverty of spirit. As we chased economic growth we closed ourselves off. We abandoned interconnectedness with other people, beings, and things. We also abandoned ourselves.
Many of the problems in our world today are visual manifestations of such abandonment. If the world isn’t looking the way you want it to look right now, author Jeff Golden argues that solving our (numerous) issues starts by healing our culture-wide poverty of spirit.
Here’s a preview:
[4:00] Money doesn’t make us happy, and the extent to which we strive for stuff is a manifestation of how unhappy we actually are inside
[8:00] How we feel about ourselves impacts how we show up in the world. How we treat others! Whether we regard other beings with love and respect!
[16:00] Exactly why healing our world (and ourselves) may indeed start by getting out of our heads
[32:00] Debunking heady intellectual conversations about the importance of the economy, plus: a laundry list of the ways we use stuff as stand-ins for well-being
[38:00] Tangible ways to “drop into yourself” (because you and others deserve it!)
New things are everywhere—and they’re causing us to disconnect from what we value most.
In a world that constantly tells us that new is better, our relentless pursuit of material wealth is costing us money, time and happiness. Worse, when we define ourselves by what we own rather than who we are, we reduce our lives to a single, superficial dimension.
On today’s show, New York Times journalist Eric Athas offers advice for stepping away from the cycle of constant buying, saying no to shallowness, and discovering the right kind of “new” in our lives.
Here's a preview:
[8:00] We're wired to become bored the familiar, and other truths to newness
[16:00] Consumption has costs! (In fact, it robs us of our finite attention, dilutes our capacity for genuine enjoyment, and misaligns our pursuit of happiness.)
[26:00] Musings on the ways in which overconsumption leads to superficiality
[37:00] Put down the trinket! Redefining what it means to experience novelty, growth, and freshness without relying on a transaction
Hello there, I’m Stephanie. I live a crazy, beautiful life as a full-time wife, blogger + mother to two spirited daughters. I’m on a mission to simplify eco-friendly living so as to greater enjoy life’s sweeter moments.
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