An Acquisitive Attitude | Teen Ink

An Acquisitive Attitude

December 14, 2009
By kaseyparks PLATINUM, Houston, Texas
kaseyparks PLATINUM, Houston, Texas
22 articles 4 photos 19 comments

"The best things in life are not things." Art Buchwald said this. I want to write briefly about the subject of materialism, and how it's actually affecting our society. Being a materialistic person, basically means that you're more concerned with material items rather than spiritual, intellectual, or cultural values. Materialism is widely known, not only as spiritually wrong, but it's a major cause of a lot of societal problems throughout the world. Materialism has been around for hundreds of years, and I believe it has corrupted our society as well as the people in it.

My first point is that designer items are expensive, unoriginal, and just downright ugly. Have you ever actually payed attention looked at the new coach purse you bought? What about the ugly thick stiching on your brand new jeans? Of course you haven't, otherwise you wouldn't have bought it. The reason you bought these expensive items was because they are considered "cool" by today's society. Teenagers, and adults, all over America buy expensive brand name items every day. The problem with this, is that the things that they buy are unnecessary, and they will clean your wallet in the meantime. MEK jeans are becoming very popular, these jeans, like i said earlier have an ugly thick stitching and sometimes are made with holes in them to look trashy, why not just go buy $10 jeans from wal-mart and cut holes in them and they will look just as good, or better, than your jeans by MEK that cost more than $100. Purses and other designer handbags are also very very pricey, I think it's dumb of people to buy these because not only the price, but there are so many cheap knock-offs of these items that it doesn't matter if the product is real or fake, people can't tell with just a glance.
People become materialistic to either A) fit in with the crowd. B) cope with their feelings of low self-worth. or C)Simply, for something to do.
I believe that possessions are worthless when it comes to the things that really matter in life. The things that matter are your experiences. The car you bought is still just a car, the jacket you bought is still just a jacket, the new HD television is still just a tv... But think about it, your experiences will improve with time while your possessions will not.
Also, who wants to be friends with someone who bang on about their latest gadget? NO ONE. People would rather about your holiday adventures or a fun vacation.



I've just shown you how material items are destroying our society, please keep this in mind next time you want to show off to your peers, in 10 years, will it really matter what you wore or what you owned in high school? Remember that there are better things in life than just things.


The author's comments:
This is a speech that I wrote for my debate class.

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This article has 1 comment.


Bethani GOLD said...
on Apr. 13 2010 at 7:15 pm
Bethani GOLD, Highlands Ranch, Colorado
10 articles 0 photos 508 comments

Favorite Quote:
Life is perfect until you sit back and realize how boring it is without risks.

Finally! Someone agrees with me! My family doesn't understand why im not materialistick. sorry if i spelled that wrong. we need more people like you and others! Good topic!