The Illusion of Opulence

By Antoinette

Growing up in the USA in the ’80s, my friends and I were introduced to the mall. The mall was our newfound playground as young teenagers! It was so cool, and we were sort of “mall rats.”

The first enclosed mall was developed in a suburb of Minneapolis in 1956. Designed to get shoppers out of the harsh weather, it introduced the world to the concept of indoor shopping. America has been “Malled.”

The “air-conditioned, sanitized, standardized” shopping malls “have become the new Main Streets of America” (Consumer Reports, 1986). This made us love shopping even more! Along with power mowers, “the pill,” antibiotics, smoke detectors, transistors, and personal computers, the shopping mall was selected as one of the top 50 wonders that have revolutionized the lives of consumers (Consumer Reports, 1986). No wonder we love it! We were born to consume!

Interestingly enough, the mall has become a norm in our lives all over most of the Western world. People love shopping! The mall fills our senses with the wonder and excitement of what our lives would be like if we could only have that one thing that makes us look special or be above average. We love to feel special and maybe even slightly superior to others by flashing our goods and competing with others. We love to use our creativity to look and feel good. It’s a sort of high we get when we are buying something. Research shows that the brain releases dopamine in anticipation of a reward. It makes perfect sense that as humans we are addicted to opulence.

When you think about it, opulence is everywhere. It tantalizes us in magazines, TV, movies, online shopping, and, of course, in the mall. Who cares? Why don’t we want to be tantalized? Don’t we love being tantalized? It’s a really good feeling. We want all pleasure and seek it each and every day. We want to feel luxurious and lost in our senses. We love the smell of something good. The allure of a vacation in a faraway destination where you can take a picture of yourself and put it on Instagram to show off how wonderful your life is.

This is all well and fine, but now we see the extreme conditions due to our exorbitant, excessive desire for opulence. But even deeper for each individual, where does the consequence, besides climate change and the extreme amounts of garbage we produce, end?

It ends, actually, once again in our unsustainable unsatisfactoriness. As a mall rat, I know all too well the never-ending lust for desires. Meditation has taught me to recall and reflect on what is going on in my mind. The best part about this meditation is that I am able to release or let go of what I am craving, wanting, or even what I can’t accept.

This meditation is about really seeing what is causing all the endless desires and why we keep waking up feeling drained because of always wanting more and never being satisfied. This is actually the best news for all of us who have never-ending thoughts of “If I could just have this or that, then I would be happy,” or “If only…” thoughts. In fact, this meditation teaches us how to let go of the 60,000 or more thoughts we have each day, 90% of which are repetitive from the day before.

Meditation has cleared out my mind from the useless distractions of material opulence and opened up a new perspective of freedom and inner peace like I have never felt before. This doesn’t mean that I don’t have what I need or never go to a mall. It means that I am no longer being dragged around by my sense of lack. The media constantly bombards us with the allure of our lack of happiness.

If you really desire happiness and peace, why not start by looking into yourself and finding out that you are already happy when you learn to let go of the prodding of endless desires? As Mick Jagger from the Rolling Stones sang, “You can’t always get what you want, but you get what you need.” The song says a lot!

We already have what we need, and by uncovering the truth within us, we see that we are already what we are looking for.

Happy Meditation!