{"id":2791,"date":"2011-03-12T00:20:52","date_gmt":"2011-03-12T07:20:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/robertfagan.com\/?p=2791"},"modified":"2025-03-18T17:49:29","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T00:49:29","slug":"are-you-a-human-haver-or-human-being","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/robertfagan\/commentary\/2791\/are-you-a-human-haver-or-human-being","title":{"rendered":"Are You a Human Haver or Human Being?"},"content":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>\n

It seems that today we\u2019ve become a society of having and accumulation \u2013 an American nation of shoppers.\u00a0 Why even our last two Presidents Bush and Obama have implored us to keep shopping and buying so that we could continue feed all the industries built on our consumerism.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is enough in this world for everyone\u2019s need, but not enough for everyone\u2019s greed\u201d said Ghandi.\u00a0 Having becomes a distraction, a way to avoid being.\u00a0 And you can thank our Puritan forbearers who taught that prosperity was a sign one was predestined to go to the promised land.\u00a0 Of course, this also got people to work hard, which has become the legacy of the Puritans.\u00a0 Now many of us go into shock and depression when we don\u2019t acquire success and its fruits.<\/p>\n

It amuses me that American families equate a minimum standard of living to include a minimum of two cars complete with stereo systems and back seat DVD players, at least three flat screen color TVs all with several hundred channel choices, cell phones for everyone in the family, high speed Internet, ownership of a home that is at least 50% larger than their parents’, a refrigerator full of beer, wine, or gourmet food, and a closet full of cosmetics, sports equipment, designer clothes and shoes, not to mention other things in garages that that are not used and quickly forgotten.\u00a0 While the media constantly has focused upon materialism and excessive consumerism, now even our government has joined the promotional chorus.<\/p>\n

More importantly, today we implicitly associate \u201c\u201dsuccess\u201d with goodness and everything else as some sort of moral flaw.\u00a0 We have become \u201cHuman Havers\u201d with social success and consumerism the de facto measurement.\u00a0 Don\u2019t get me wrong, I, too, enjoy all the many pleasure that our material things offer and don’t advocate taking a vow of poverty, but I have concluded that all that supposed admiration and power associated with being a human haver doesn\u2019t keep one from feeling lonely and disconnected.<\/p>\n

Do you want to make the transition to fulfillment?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Bob Fagan is a Performance\/Fulfillment Coach and Consultant and can be reached at rsf4653@aol.com.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It seems that today we\u2019ve become a society of having and accumulation \u2013 an American nation of shoppers.\u00a0 Why even… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":2792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[334,2109],"tags":[5940,5941,5942,5943],"class_list":["post-2791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-life-coaching","tag-obama","tag-george-bush","tag-materialism","tag-consumerism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/robertfagan\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/33\/2011\/03\/materialism.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/robertfagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/robertfagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/robertfagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/robertfagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/robertfagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2791"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/robertfagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18827,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/robertfagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2791\/revisions\/18827"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/robertfagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/robertfagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/robertfagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/robertfagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}