VERSION|0.5.1|NAME|Dinah|DATE|1385744292|CONTENT|I think discontent is part of the human condition.  It doesn’t just apply to things and ‘stuff’, it applies to looks, sex, intelligence, abilities and personality.  Wherever we go, there will be other people who are better at things, more successful and cleverer than we are, better–looking, have a better-looking partner, be more popular and more insightful.  Maybe we compensate for this by buying stuff.

I am intrigued by the idea that people who earn above a certain income are more dissatisfied.  An annual income of £22,000 doesn’t exactly put anyone on the rich list.  It certainly wouldn’t go very far for someone trying to work and live in central London, but would be a lot more than enough for someone else living at home with their parents and paying a low or no rent.  Everything is relative.  For someone on the minimum wage £22,000 would seem like a small fortune, for another on £150,000 it would seem like a poverty wage.  

Maybe being acquisitive and buying a load of stuff we don’t need and others don’t need either isn’t so great, but it must beat the old days of desperate, grinding poverty and the workhouse.  At least nowadays most of us can be miserable in relative comfort.

In answer to Stonyground’s question about religion and acquisitiveness, I have never seen any evidence that religious people are less greedy than anyone else, but they do tend to be better at covering it up.
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