That’s Enough

G. K. Chesterton said there are two ways to get enough: (1) accumulate more and more or (2) need less.

It’s obvious which option we’ve chosen in our culture and the results are disastrous. According to the Christian Science Monitor in 2003:

• The average debt for U. S. families with at least one credit card was $9,025.
• The number of personal bankruptcy filings was 1.6 million.
• The percentage of Americans who believe they will always be in debt: 30. (30 percent of our population expects to die owing money!)

The counter-cultural option is to learn to need less. If you really want to swim against the stream of our culture this is one great way to do it. We talk about wanting to be different from the world around us in our sexual ethic, and the way we do family, and the way we treat other people. Those are all well and good. But if you really want to stick out like a sore thumb in our culture, stop buying things you can’t pay for. Stop going into debt for things you don’t really need. That’s about as counter-cultural as you can get.

Maybe we should do our society a favor and fight for a constitutional amendment banning consumer debt!