The Dogma of Increasing Wants

The tenth commandment forbids coveting. The flip side of the command, of course, is to be content. I imagine that being content was challenging in any time and place, but never more so than in our society. For we live in a discontented world. Our advertisers and marketers count on that, and capitalize on it.

A few years ago, a Cincinnati Enquirer editorial spoke to this very phenomenon. The author comments:

American advertising doesn’t want us to become to content with what we have, how we look, what we drive, where we live, or the sex we’re having. “You and your life, are deprived,” marketers imply, “you’ll never reach happiness and contentment unless you have more and look better.” That’s devious! While they promise contentment and happiness, they are really inflicting discontent and dissatisfaction.

“It is the tragedy of our times,” says psychotherapist Robert Johnson,” that no matter what we achieve, how much money we earn, or how many blessings come our way, more is never enough. For every desire you fill, another one always follows on its heels…” (Father Lou Guntzelman, “Contentment: The Experience of Being Satisfied,” Cincinnati Enquirer, July 21-22, 2004)

American advertising (along with our own sinful nature, and Satan himself) have taught us that the secret to contentment is in the marketplace. We need bigger things, better things, faster things, more stylish things in order to be happy.

But it’s never enough, is it? We buy what we think we need, and almost before we’re out of the store, we’re told we need something else. A couple of years ago I bought a Macbook. Two days later the Macbook Air came out. Instead of being content with my new (and great) purchase, I could only think, “Darn it! Why couldn’t I have gotten the newest one!”

D. R. Davies, in a provocative book called The Sin of Our Age, wrote: “The good life has become inseparable from the maximum possible consumption of things. . . The dogma of the new religion is the dogma of increasing wants.”

And if it’s not the marketplace and its enticements that keep us from real contentment, then it’s probably circumstances. Many of us have adopted a “just as soon as” mentality about life. Life will be good just as soon as:
• I finish working
• Get married
• Finish school
• Have a child
• Buy a bigger house
• Botox my face
• Or hit the lottery
Just as soon as that happens, then I’ll be happy and content. The grass is always greener somewhere other than my current situation. And so I wait, for that hypothetical time in the future, to really enjoy contentment.

Oh to be like the Apostle Paul, and learn the secret of being content.

I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. (Philippians 4:11-12)