If you don’t want to gain weight, you shouldn’t hang around Mrs. Field’s cookie shop.
If you don’t want to drink, you shouldn’t go to the bar to watch the football game.
If you don’t want to have a materialistic mindset, you shouldn’t hang around the mall.
I made a mistake today. I took my daughter to the mall.
My 12-year old daughter wanted to get a jacket. She doesn’t need another jacket. She has a pretty nice jacket that serves her well for school. But she wanted to look around at the mall, and perhaps find a green jacket that she has been wanting.
Since there isn’t anything we must buy, I forewarned my daughter that we are merely going to look. “We are not going to buy anything unless we find something outstanding, and at a decent price” I said, “If we end up not buying anything, don’t be disappointed or upset.” She agreed that we will walk around the mall just to have fun and it is not necessary to actually buy something.
Even though we had that conversation and an understanding before we went to the mall, my daughter was in fact disappointed and upset that she wasn’t able to find a jacket that fit our criteria. She did see a jacket for almost $50 – I don’t consider that a decent price. We saw a t-shirt that she liked, on sale, but with a drawer full of t-shirts. I said the $10 could be better spent on something else.
We came home with nothing.
It is impossible to go to a candy store just to look around, and feel satisfied that you got to look but not taste anything.
After going to the mall, after your eyes feasted on beautiful expensive clothes, accessories, gadgets, and all the “stuff” that entices you, it is impossible to not have a materialistic mindset. We do have a selfish nature of wanting things for ourselves. It is not our tendency to be giving and generous, to think of others first. When we hang out at the mall too much, it is easy to feed the part of us that is greedy. We end up spending money on ourselves. We become covetous, to lust after the name brands and the latest styles. Need we wonder why our kids are so materialistic?
Too much time at the mall leads us to forget that there are greater causes more worthy to put our money towards than another jacket.
I suggest time is better spent with your children at the park, playing tennis, riding a bike…
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