The Unnecessary Necessity that Plagues Us All

"But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon plowed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they
are employed. . . .
Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market. He has no time to be anything but a machine."

Henry David Thoreau
From the chapter "Economy" in Walden

Although conducted in the nineteenth century, Henry David Thoreau’s experiment in living and the conclusions that he drew from it may be even more relevant for today’s society that seeks comfort and validation from material possessions on an ever increasing scale. Thoreau’s experiment sought to answer the questions that many of us still find ourselves asking today; what is necessity, and when do the objects that we seek to possess come to possess us instead?
The above quote is the result of conclusions that Thoreau drew from living a life of simplicity while alone at Walden Pond. When Thoreau says that “men labor under a mistake,” he does not mean that hard work is not admirable; what he means is that people should stop to consider what it is that they are truly working to obtain. In reality, people do not work for the material things themselves; they work for the happiness and the contentment that they think these new products or conveniences will bring them. Ironically, it is often the never ending race to always buy more that denies people the happiness that they are seeking from these luxuries in the first place. The things that can truly bring us contentment, validation, and pure happiness like fellowship with friends and family are passed by the wayside when we become blinded by the latest and greatest that money can buy. How many times have we all felt stress and pressure to work harder for the luxuries that we convince ourselves we need at the expense of spending that extra hour at home with the ones we love? We become like the ploughman in Thoreau’s quote when our excessive labor ceases to benefit us and instead buries us under unnecessary pressure and stress.

I am not so extreme and do not even claim that I myself do not strive for conveniences and material comforts, and I would be a hypocrite if I told others that all unnecessary possessions are corrupting and should be denied. However, I do believe that life today is fraught with unnecessary stress and burden because we convince ourselves that we need so much more than we really do. Just as in so many other areas of life, people must seek to strike a balance between comfortable living and excess. This balance is not so hard to achieve when we consider the one commonality that often binds the material possessions that we all seek. When we think back on those things that we have bought that have truly brought us happiness, we often find that it was not the material thing itself that gave us joy, but instead experiencing the new purchase with others that really made the purchase worthwhile. We must learn not to become the “laboring man” who reduces himself to a machine in order to simply buy more machines. Life cannot be so mechanical that we forsake true happiness that can only be found through meaningful relationships and not things. Let us buy what we can comfortably afford and let those luxuries enhance our experiences with loved ones, and as for the time gained by not striving for the excess, spend that hour to notice that there is beauty and wealth just as rich in the simplicity of the dawning of each day as there is in anything that money and unnecessary burden can buy.

When does comfortable living become excess in your opinion?

Do you think that materialism relates to many people's poor self image and insecurities regarding their own identities?

When reflecting on your own life, do you find that personal reflection and simplicity spent with loved ones is as fulfilling or more that individual extravagance?

I'd love to hear from everyone. Have a wonderful week!

--Carrie Goertz