The best things in life are moments filled with feelings, emotions, sensations of being alive, the touch, the smile of someone you love, the embrace, the kiss, the hug. the warmth of someone you love.  The feel of the sun on your face. The cool wind on your skin. The sun glistening in the trees. The sound of music. The taste of your favorite food. The best things in life are feelings and emotions triggered by people and experiences that create wonderful memories. The best thing in life is to feel and experience our senses. The best thing in life is communication. God’s gift of being on earth is to experience love and joy… the real connection to self, to others and to the source… our maker.

Sure ‘things’ are part of living on earth, but they are not the reason… they are only to enhance, to give to others, and to make our life easier, and perhaps, fun. Things are tools. Things are sofas to sit on, utensils to eat with.

I once went on a date with a man who loved expensive cars and owned many. On our first date, we had fun, he was attentive. We had a great conversation and dinner at a nice restaurant. I think he was driving a Mercedes that evening, but I didn’t care. I thought him a nice man. On our second date, he arrived in a Ferrari. It was pretty… but I have ridden in and owned many great cars. A car is a car. A car is fun to drive. A car gets you from place to place, but it is a thing.  I was chatting as he drove down the tollway to our destination. He did not respond to me, but instead, stared straight at the rode.  I thought …’Umm this is bizarre’. He was not the friendly talkative man of our first date.

Turning into the parking lot of the restaurant,  another car turned too close to him and he sparked into anger with a comment to match. He parked his Ferrari  in a distant parking place to make certain no one could ding it.  At dinner, he kept looking out at his car, since we were by the window with view of it.

After dinner, on our way to the movie, he was overly focused on his driving and was not talkative. So, I inquired. “Are you okay?  You seem preoccupied?” To which he snapped, when I drive this car, I focus on my driving. It’s my baby. It’s worth thus and so. It’s an investment. I only take it out occasionally.

I responded. “So, why did you drive it tonight, to impress me?”

He, “Sure, did. And I did, didn’t I?  I knew you would look great in this car.”

Me, “Actually no. It’s a nice car. But it’s our second date and your focus is on the car and not me. I would rather your attention have been on me, on our getting to know one another, instead of a car,or how I look in your car.”

He, ” Well, well, well…ummm, I thought you would like riding in a Ferrari.”

Me, “We had a great first date. I thought you nice and interesting. I have been in a Ferrari before, in fact, several times.. They are nice cars, but your attention is on it, not me, or us getting to know one another. So, why don’t you and your car continue the date and take me home.”

He, “But I like you. I really like you. You are beautiful, smart and fun.”

Me, “But your attention tonight is on your car. So please take me home and be with your car.”

He asked me out several times after that evening and I declined. This self-centered materialistic man was shocked by my response concerning his ‘car’. He had no idea how to impress much less connect with a woman like me, or really any woman, unless she’s a gold digger and as materialistic a woman as he is a man. And did this fool think so little of women that he thought he could ‘buy’ or ‘lure’ me into liking him with his ‘things’.  How little he must think of himself.

As I stated previously, cars are fun, but people are what matter most.  When people put things before people, they have a distortion in their spirit, soul and, of course, their life. This man showed me early on that ‘his things’ matter more than interacting with me and in his distorted mind, he thought I would like him, or be impressed with a car so much that I would, what? Like him for and because of his car… Ha! His things defined him. He’s fractured with no real inner core. It’s like people such as this are anchored to a reality defined by their ‘things’… instead of their internal core. People such as this often view people as things and treat them as such… as in the trophy wife… and that is how I felt with him. He liked me because he liked the way I looked in his car. He gave no value to who I am inside only that my exterior fit with his  false and fake ‘image’ of self. His concern wasn’t with me, my feelings, my emotions, or getting to really know me… but to show his car off to me. And therefore, show his car and me, off to others… as in ‘his image’ was what was important to him. His image as it related to ‘things’.

It’s one ‘thing’ to enjoy things…quite another to place them where people ought be in  your life.

His placement of value was seriously misplaced.  I never saw him again and he didn’t understand why. Later, I interacted with some people who knew him, actually who had worked for him. (Funny how that happens.) I learned that even though successful,  he was the worst boss they had ever had and one man quit his job because of him. This man of ‘things’ lives in a house worth millions, gated and well-guarded. Has a garage full of expensive, collectible cars and lives alone. He was married once years ago. She had an affair and left him. (He told me this on our first date and poor him, he was so hurt when she did that and he didn’t understand why she did.) He is a hard-hearted money grubbing executive, no one could stand working with, or, for him. He retired early and is alone with his things.  Who knows what happened to make this man so inhuman, fractured, unfeeling and cold. What happened to him that he has no self worth, unless it is connected to money and things? And he’s so far gone now, no one could/would care, except a woman just like him or a gold-digger. But he wouldn’t really share his things with her. He’s too selfish  and self-centered. 

I enjoy things, pretty furniture, antiques, art, jewelry, clothes and yes, cars, too. But nothing comes before people and certainly not before someone I love.

Things are to enhance life, not to replace people, or to become a life.