2006-11-12 09:16:52 · 6 answers · asked by Anonymous in Social Science ➔ Economics
Very good question. We do live in a physical/material world and we do have a need for material items such as food, clothing, water and shelter. BUT when you get caught up in excess material possessions and keeping up with or showing up other people you then have a problem. I have witnessed people get sucked into that lifestyle and they become sick with obsession and they never have enough. It becomes their drug. Relationships become secondary. And they become a bore. I have done rather well but have always lived beneath my means and retired with a nice income from my investments since I was 38 years old because for me....less was more. I had nothing to prove to anyone and that gave me the freedom to do anything that I wanted to. I have outlived many of the overachievers and never went nuts like some of them did. The key to a good life is MODERATION! And....becoming your own best friend. The real wealth in life is your family, friends and pet's.
2006-11-12 09:48:43 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
Materialism. Is not owning things. When you will put things above your relationship with with family and friends, you are off balance. When you have to have things as good, or better than you family and friends you are in a competition with a spiraling credit exposure and loss of controling you life. This culminatess in sleepless nights, aggrevation from creditors and feelings of failure.
A very successful old man told me once, "Buy what you NEED." and you will have plenty of money to live on.
There are other things that WILL bring you happiness. People look for happiness from things and there is none mostly it is just something you have to clean and repair. It is more like the thing owns you, not you owning it.
Quite seriously if you can get a dog, or a cat and take good care of it you will bond with it and have more happiness from that living creature than anything you could buy that is just stuff. And yes, you will have to spend time taking care of it, and it will interupt your life, but giving from the heart is the most rewarding feeling we can have.
So who does it hurt, the answer is it hurts you initially and eventually everyone you know or will know. Broken homes, unthankful children and in general a miserable vain and useless life.
2006-11-12 17:35:20 · answer #2 · answered by mulestreet 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If you don't need material things you're a ghost. So the idea that material things aren't important is foolish non-sense. You have to have food, shelter and clothing, those are all materials things.
2006-11-12 20:54:48 · answer #3 · answered by Roadkill 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Materialism implies that physical well-being and worldly possessions are more important than any other aspects of life. If you are subverting personal relationships, growth, and improving the world around you in favor of accumulating worldly goods, you are most certainly hurting yourself and in all likelihood hurting others in the quest of your goals.
2006-11-12 17:28:22 · answer #4 · answered by kathy_is_a_nurse 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I think it mostly hurts the one experiencing it! It took my lifetime so far, watching the way people live around me, casually observing, to see this. We truly do make our own reality.
Materialism is a problem because it results in greed, thus, slavery to the system in ever longer hours that won't matter in the long run.
This leads to broken and damaged relationships, marriages, than the breakdown of society.
We all need and enjoy material things. Having an obsession with them is materialism.
People, and ecology. Not things. They are emptiness.
2006-11-12 18:11:20 · answer #5 · answered by smoothsoullady 4 · 0⤊ 2⤋
The other Bloke!
... as you must be good at it!
It also hurts women, as they would be treated as objects, not as human beings as yourself.
2006-11-12 17:25:54 · answer #6 · answered by dr c 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋