
Have you ever caught yourself thinking, 'If only I had a little more money, time or stuff, then I'd be happy? ' You're not alone. Our society seems obsessed with the idea that more is always better. But is it really?
The relationship between quantity and benefit is often not a straight line. In many cases, there are negative effects past a certain point. For example, more money doesn't always lead to more happiness. More food consumption doesn't equate to better health, and can even lead to obesity and related health issues. Even in other areas of health like exercise, more is only associated with better physical and mental wellbeing to a point. So, why are we so hung up on wanting more of nearly everything?
I have been writing one article per week for the last 20 years. Curious about my own musings on the topic of 'more', I performed a search on my computer using the words “prosperity” and “abundance”. Not one article popped up in the results. Have I avoided the topic? Perhaps.

My childhood was certainly shiny on the outside, but the level of strife behind our doors was palpable. I learned at a very young age that having "more" didn’t mean my life was "better" (I wanted better). Eventually, I discovered I wasn’t the only one in my family to question society’s push for excess.
My sister was the first to explore the opposite. I distinctly remember her providing me with studies demonstrating that the trade of time for money was a 'false economy'. In her quest for deeper understanding, she joined the Simplicity Collective (http://simplicitycollective.com/start-here) and became “dedicated to exploring, promoting, and celebrating a materially simple but inwardly rich life.” Not coincidentally, as my sister simplified her life, new doors of opportunity opened for her. Since those early explorations, she has sold everything she owns three times. Her minimalist journey is her act of rebellion against the ways in which our society seems to push us into needless consumption.
The tension one might feel around consumption vs. sufficiency isn’t just our family's issue, however. We see its reflection in the natural world around us. In her book, The Soul of Money, Lynne Twist cites the great environmentalist, Dana Meadows, who said that one of the most fundamental laws of the earth is the law of 'enough'.
"Nature", she once wrote, "says we have 'just so much and no more'. Just so much soil. Just so much water. Just so much sunshine. Everything born of the earth grows to its appropriate size and then stops. The planet does not get bigger, it gets better. Its creatures learn, mature, diversify, evolve, create amazing beauty and novelty and complexity, but live within absolute limits.”
Most of us no longer live in resource-scarce environments where the accumulation of more is required in order to improve our chances of survival. In fact, research has linked high levels of materialism to decreased life satisfaction, increased rates of anxiety and depression, and lower self-esteem. Time poverty, social comparison, environmental concerns due to excessive consumption and resource accumulation, and associated relationship strain are real things.
“Fine, fine Jill. I get your point. So now what?”

I suggest that we can cultivate contentment, but that arriving at such an outcome requires us to go on a journey. First, we must deprogram years of conditioning and, while we are at it, learn to hear the wisdom of our hearts. I invite you to begin by engaging in a meditation practice of any kind; to quiet your mind in order to tune into deeper feelings and intuitions. This is one way to develop emotional intelligence - by recognizing and understanding how attending to your emotions helps to tease out your deeper, heart-led wisdom.
Seek solitude and quiet spaces where you can listen to your physical sensations and learn what they reveal. Take out your journal and document your journey, to uncover patterns and insights. Most of all, I recommend spending time in Nature. It doesn’t matter where you are from or what kind of lifestyle you have lived... Nature has a way of distracting us from our automatic daily living; connecting us with our inner wisdom in ways that are profound and unique.
These suggestions are a beginning. Patience through these practices has increasing returns. You will soon discover that, while there may not be measurable changes to record on the outside, what will be experienced is a dramatic change on the inside... and this, eventually, transforms everything. (In these ways, more actually is better!)