False Expectations

I read something by a Donella Meadows who is a Systems engineer and environmental scientist.  I definitely subscribe to the sentiment being expressed.
“People don't need enormous cars; they need admiration and respect. They don't need a constant stream of new clothes; they need to feel that others consider them to be attractive, and they need excitement and variety and beauty. People don't need electronic entertainment; they need something interesting to occupy their minds and emotions. And so forth.  Trying to fill real but nonmaterial needs—for identity, community, self-esteem, challenge, love, joy—with material things is to set up an unquenchable appetite for false solutions….
I definitely love a new car or, watch or device.  We got a new fridge recently.  Someone came who was learning another language.  I remember asking how you say “new fridge” in that language.  I was wanting to highlight the new fridge.
It is the last sentence of the quote I find incredibly applicable to the day in which we live. “Trying to fill real but nonmaterial needs—for identity, community, self-esteem, challenge, love, joy—with material things is to set up an unquenchable appetite for false solutions….
What I find so disappointing at this time is that people are being led to believe that new cars or devices will meet the need for love acceptance or forgiveness.  They will not.  They definitely produce a momentary sense of satisfaction.  But all material things are temporary and as science declares, they deteriorate.  At best all material things are a means to an end and not an end in themselves.
One of the reasons I find this sort of thing disappointing is the false expectation aroused.  So often it seems the thought is, if I can just get more of this or that I will be satisfied.  Yet many have gone before and found that is not the case.
I am definitely a believer in doing my best to set myself up and endevouring to make things comfortable for me into the future.  But I think what is being promoted gives false hope on a couple of levels.  So many it seems spend a lifetime pursuing a mirage.  I feel for many today as the message is that I need to be a certain way to be acceptable.
Yet I have found that to be not true.  I am me.  Warts and all.  I have some strengths and some weaknesses.  I am not beautiful or rich or famous.  But I feel good about myself.  Not because I meet a false standard set by society but because He accepts me.  That is liberating.