Day 60 – Can’t Buy Me Prosperity

People buy for emotional reasons, then rationalize the purchase with logic. The job of the marketer is to make the consumer believe, via relentless propaganda, that the want is in fact a need. In other words, they pull your emotional and psychological strings and a-spending you go.

Here are some reasons we justify spending hard-earned cash on unneeded purchases:

• Quality of life — The product will improve our education/knowledge, health, spiritual life, emotional satisfaction/security, social success.
• Pleasure — The experience of shopping in an exclusive place makes us feel better.
• Beautify the home — We get a feeling of identity and worth from our home’s appearance.
• Education — The more education we have, the more we crave. And then we apply it in the excitement of researching our major purchases.
• Relaxation — The longer we stay in a store, the more we spend, especially on relaxation products.
• Entertainment — We buy or rent things to reduce boredom and generate excitement. Or we seek an environment that helps us experience shopping as entertainment.
• Planned purchase — We build anticipation for buying something unneeded by researching and planning for the purchase.
• Emotional satisfaction — We spend seeking emotional comfort, the fun of having the latest and greatest, or to express our identity.
• Replacing an existing item — Replacing a worn-out item often serves as a catalyst for an extended spending spree on coordinated items.

• Stress relief — We turn to relaxation products/ equipment, nostalgia- and tradition-themed items to deliver comfort.

• Hobbies — We collect for the joy of ownership and the thrill of the hunt. If one family member collects, usually others do also.
• Gifts — When buying gifts for others, we often buy a more expensive one for ourselves.
• Impulse purchase — We gain a feeling of power and entitlement from making an impulse buy.
• Status — While few of us admit it, we buy things that will be visible to others in order to impress them.
Do any of these justifiers sound familiar? They should. Advertisers spend billions each year to push these buttons in your psyche. But how many of you realize that if you think from a standpoint of abundance, you can attract what you truly want. If we focus on what we lack, we simply attract more of the same. However, if we focus our thoughts and attention on the positive, like being grateful for the things we already have, then we will attract more of what we want. In fact gratitude is one of the keys to achieving real prosperity. So, what is prosperity?

Prosperity means different things to different people, for some it is monetary and material things, for others it is spiritual and emotional issues. True prosperity comes from achieving balance at all levels, spiritual, mental, emotional and physical. I believe true prosperity is having your innermost needs and desires met at all levels  and being able to fully enjoy them. Prosperity is something you experience in your mind and thoughts, it is not an external state and it is therefore quite possible to experience prosperity at any level of income.

“If you want to feel rich, just count the things you have that money can’t buy.” –Proverb

It can be said, then, that feeling prosperous is a relative thing indeed: for some people, no amount of money will make them feel prosperous enough to be happy. Maybe prosperity comes in other forms as well, and perhaps prosperity can be better defined as being happy with what you have, while expecting more to flow to you.

So, today I am grateful for the prosperity thinking I have that allows me to live fully and love fully. Look around in your life, everywhere you will find both big and little things to be grateful for, people you know, little events that put a smile on your face, your children, money you receive…. our lives are full of abundance already, but often we choose to ignore it. You will never attract more abundance into your life if you disregard what you already have. So every day set just a small amount of time aside to think about and be grateful for all the good things you already have in your life, by cherishing and focusing on the good things you have, you will attract even more into your life. It is simple but true. Just learn to get what you really want and love the things you already have.

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. “ – John F. Kennedy