Around the world, there are a myriad different ways to build a home, but the style generally comes down to a couple of things - climate, available materials and culture. For example, the buildings in Amsterdam are built narrow, high and deep, because of culture, where building taxes were based on width of frontage to the water - the wider the building, the higher the tax. And this indicates the main material that affects building style - money.
Climate, available materials and at least generalized culture, mean very little when there is enough material money available to spend. No matter how hot or cold it is, it is possible to mitigate the effects by spending more on things like air-conditioning or, triple-glazed windows for insulation. No matter what materials are available locally, with enough money it is possible to import what is required from anywhere on earth. And with enough money, the general culture matters little, because it is possible to move and create areas where a different style can be applied - for example, in Beverly Hills.
For the average person though, it is nearly always a tradeoff on style and materials, where decisions are made based on financial availability. Some of the desirable luxuries are foregone in order to equip the basics and then, there is a spectrum of quality in material and design that has to be considered - is it the 20 dollar, 100 dollar or 1000 dollar light fittings? Is it the laminate, wood or stone countertops?
But, because of this constant compromise, even if we are happy with the outcomes, we are also likely somewhat "disappointed" that we couldn't do exactly what we wanted to do, generally missing out to some degree on exactly what we would have done, had we had enough money material available. I know that for me at least, I feel this, even though I am pleased with our efforts and results overall.
This means though, very, very few people can ever have their "dream home" because, *no one dreams about having to compromise. In dreams, we get exactly what we want, the way we want it and because we don't have to pay anything more than thought energy to have it - we can dream on forever, building entire worlds of impossibility, as described by our lack of resources.
Does this that we are building "castles in the sky" that will end up making us evaluate what we are actually able to accomplish as inadequate - are we setting ourselves up for disappointment?
I think so.
But, we are generally pretty flexible in our mind when it comes to our mental gymnastics to make whatever we have, good enough. We tend to overvalue the things that we buy and justify why our inferior holdings are better than the superior, by weighing attributes unequally. For example, someone living in a small house will say something like, "it is easy to clean and keep warm", but if they could afford a larger house, they likely would justify it by saying something like, "we need the space for...". It is the same with cars, where people buy a car and compare it to others lesser than their own, but not to the ones greater or when they do, say things like, "Ferraris are impractical and expensive to maintain".
There is nothing wrong with this, but is it authentic?
Most of us don't know the alternative lives than the basic one we have, so it makes it easy to say, "money doesn't buy happiness" without thinking whether there is a difference between the happiness levels of the rich and poor. Without real insight, what does the statement mean? And yes, there are all kinds of personality traits that will affect happiness, but speaking at a general level, having enough tends to be emotionally better than *not having enough.
Obviously, there are lots of reasons for this, but even if one is able to have enough for basics, there will still be the sense of constant compromise and inability to have luxuries, especially when we live in a world of advertising coming in from every source, including from our friends and family, and random strangers on the internet who post their "material success" on the many platforms - their latest gadget, the holiday, the pictures where they are only wearing their best clothing.
We are not only encouraged to dream of better for ourselves, we are also constantly reminded of the compromises we have to make across pretty much everything that is important to us. We look at the world for inspiration, get inspired and then have to acknowledge that we do not have the required resources to make it happen. And, regardless of how so many of us claim we are unaffected, I think it shines through how affected people actually are through the justifications, as we have compared themselves to others and feel we have to explain why what we have, is better.
Regardless of all of this though, what is good to note is that our experience in this life is determined by our perception, not by what actually happens to us. Better isn't better and worse isn't worse, except when we compare it to alternatives and make the decision to see the differences as positive or negative. And even then, we are still able to justify up and down as to why our perception is actually incorrect, making our very own evaluations, wrong.
Just like building a house, our perception of life is going to be affected by the climate, materials and culture of our mind, and if we aren't paying attention, we might not have the resources to build adequately and instead, end up living in a home that is draughty and doesn't protect us from the elements of our experience as we may want.
If you could build yourself again, what kind of building would you want to own?
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
