by Mark Sasse – 2013

Have you ever just taken a moment to look around your house at all the stuff you have wasted money on? It’s okay to admit it. We surround ourselves with a ton of junk.

I recently surveyed some items in our house. A $120 video console that nobody uses. A $200 iPod Touch that freezes up and now only plays music. My daughter’s $500 camera which is outdated and remains “awkward to use” as she says. My other daughter’s $100 camera that doesn’t work. My son’s $100 camera that hasn’t taken a picture in over a year. And the list goes on … Limited resources spent on “must-have” items which end up in the trash or at a garage sale for 2% of its original value. At least with a paperback, you can rip its cover off and still end up providing enjoyment for people. Somebody in Simi Valley or in a Special Economic Zone in eastern China is laughing. I’m pretty sure it isn’t me.

Over the last few years, I’ve been noticing a shift in my thinking. I am no longer enthralled with mindless TV content or Hollywood same-as-last-year blockbusters. I have a growing desire to be defined by what I create, not by what I consume. And so the transition is in place. Sure, I still like things. Sometimes too much. But the draw is much less now that I have allowed myself to be myself. What do I mean by that? I went for twenty years afraid of being a writer because I felt that I couldn’t measure up to anyone else, and so I settled on being a consumer, instead. But can satisfaction be found in what we consume or what we create?

When I wrote my first novel “Beauty Rising” in the summer of 2011, I was afraid to do anything with it. I was afraid that I couldn’t repeat the process. I promised myself this: I won’t release it until I have written my second. I wrote my second novel, “The Recluse Storyteller” in the summer of 2012. Once completed, I finally felt free to release my first which I did in December 2012. I repeated the same process this year – creating my third before releasing my second. What I learned throughout this whole process is that I love to create. I love to write stories and see where they take me, discovering what will happen, knowing that the outcome is solely determined by me – not by Hollywood, or a face-less corporation. Now that I have started the creative process, there is no going back.

I would much prefer to be typing away on my computer (yes, I know. I can’t get away from it) than watching a forgettable episode TV. The creative process in itself has become the ends for me. I am rewarded by the process, and if nobody ever reads my works, I’m all right with that because I just love to write and create. But if others like my writings, all the better. You may not be a writer, but I would encourage you to find whatever it is that you love and pursue it. Whether it be cooking, or gardening, or art, or friendship-building, or, etc…I believe we were all meant to be creative in one way or another. Once we tune into what that means in our own lives, we will find the pull of consumerism to be less and less on our lives. That can’t be a bad thing, can it?