Check out this article I wrote for Elephant Journal on the Buddhist notion of dukkha, the sense of lack and our collective obsession with buying and having stuff.

Here’s an excerpt:

With all due respect to René Descartes, I think a more accurate characterization of the modern human condition is not his famous, “I think therefore I am,” but rather “I lack therefore I am.” Who we are, or who we think we are, has become inextricably linked to the things we buy and the brands we affiliate with as what we project outward into society is reflected back to us as a form of self validation. This is how we really know who we are.

As a result, we’ve become a society obsessed with stuff. We buy stuff, we buy more stuff and then when we run out of room for the stuff we have, we rent space so we can store the extra stuff. As a result, Self Storage has become one of the fastest growing industries in the United States.

Happy reading.