Imagine If…

Posted on December 29 2011

Imagine if, for a minute, we lived in a different world.  Imagine if everybody had a wooden sign in their front yard with the amount of their total debt, including their mortgage.  Imagine that every time you left your house in the morning, you drove by hundreds of homes with signs in their yard stating their debt load.  Astonishingly, as you make your way into nicer neighborhoods, you notice the numbers creeping up.  Everywhere you go, there are signs, telling stories of the people that live in each home and how they have chosen to manage their finances.

Alright, so I know that picture is a little extreme.  Our government would never require us to post such private information on a sign in our front yard.  But this scenario does encourage conversation about the way Americans have tried to always have bigger, better, and nicer.  For years, our culture has bought into the idea that we need to impress people with our “stuff.”

Have you been caught trying to keep up with the Joneses?  Or maybe you’ve been trying to keep up with the Kardashians (who, by the way, made a whopping $65 million last year).  The average American household is $117,951 in debt.  They make $43,000 per year, but can’t manage to pay off a $2,200 credit card balance.  The phrase “keeping up with the Joneses” is derived from a comic strip by Arthur R. “Pop” Momand that was popular in the early 1900s. In the comic strip, Momand refers to the unseen neighbors of the main characters as “the Joneses.”  Although the phrase is not used as frequently today, it still carries the same meaning -  using those around you as benchmarks in your quest to climb the socioeconomic ladder.

It’s natural to compare what we have to others around us – unfortunately, if we’re not careful, it can turn into covetousness.  Exodus 20:17 (The Message) says, “No lusting after your neighbor’s house—or wife or servant or maid or ox or donkey. Don’t set your heart on anything that is your neighbor’s.”  Let’s make it personal by substituting “lake home or dog or brand-new SUV or boat or Chanel purse or laptop or latest DVD” to fit our culture today.  Admiring something is one thing, but coveting goes past that, until you desire it so much that you will do almost anything to get it.

So how do we avoid playing the game of comparison?  Realize that your neighbors don’t really “have it all.”  In fact, they’re possibly more in debt than you are.  Many people have used credit cards and other debt to fund their comfortable lifestyles, but you wouldn’t guess it from looking just on the outside.  Another way you can stop trying to keep up with the Joneses is to intentionally decide to be content.  Comparing yourself to others just leads to discontentment, which breeds envy, anxiety, and other negativity in your life.  Choose to be content with your lifestyle and to be thankful for what you DO have.

Who knows?  In my imagination, my house has a white picket fence, and I’ve convinced my husband to make our yard sign a little bigger – not because we need more room for all the numbers, but so that next to the “$0,” it can say “WE’RE DEBT-FREE!!” and have balloons tied on it.  Because then… everyone will want to keep up with ME.

By Kristen Larson

FLCS Staff