Rich or Wasteful?

Sometimes I see people who seem to be very affluent splashing the cash around and I wonder: are they rich or wasteful?

Take this example:

Someone was telling me about how they have an iPad, an iPhone 4S and soon they are getting the iPhone 5 on pre-order. Now my initial reaction was, “wow, I feel happy for you. You must be doing well.” Afterwards I felt different. I thought anyone could buy all these things; it’s not difficult. Any fool with a credit card. Now does this person really need an iPad and the latest iPhone? I don’t think so. If this is a ploy to make people believe they are rich then it may work on some but not everyone is that gullible. If I ran up hundreds of pounds of debt buying all these gadgets and blowing money on cars and motorbikes people would no doubt be impressed but really the joke is on me. It’s all got to be paid back one day. There are people who have three or four cars. A car is a mode of transport so the question is this: Is the vehicle used more important than where you are travelling to? Some may say that if you are rich it does not matter how many cars you have. Correct, but does it not also indicate someone is spending money unnecessarily?

In case you were curious, yes, I am still toying with the idea of buying an iPhone 5 for my wife and I because we do use our phones a lot and they give us a good deal of enjoyment. They are a lot more expensive than the iPhone 3Gs we currently have by a long way. I’m talking over twice as much per month than what we have at the moment. I made the point that we couldn’t really afford the 3G when we bought them but we never looked back so this will be no different. I dunno… Maybe I’ll sleep on it for a week. This is another form of attachment and as we know; attachment is dukkha. That being said, I can write about attachment and non-self a lot easier with a modern iPhone.