When is enough enough?

About a year ago I purchased a new camera for myself. It was a birthday present, or so I rationalized.  I didn’t really need it for I had two other good cameras. But there was something about this model that struck my fancy, so I laid down the greenbacks and walked away with what I believe to be the best camera I have ever owned.

Then a few days ago the emails started. “Are you using old technology?”  New advances in photography await you.”  "Your old camera can be replaced for pennies on the dollar. Hurry.”  And so on and so forth.

Promises of even greater photographic reproduction awaited me. All I had to do was trade in my less-than-a-year-old camera and get the company’s newest rendition. They told me I needed it to capture my pictures in the most vivid colors and the most accurate sharpness yet devised by man and God. It made it sound as if my failure to act would make every photograph I took from this moment forward a blurry image with barely discernible features of the subjects I studied.

And to think, my camera wasn’t even a year old, yet.

This company’s engineers had been working tirelessly through the nights and on weekends, no doubt, to insure the quality of the new camera was even better than the one I currently owned. Their claims were so exaggerated I would have expected they would issue a recall of my current model any day in order to replace it with this life-changing box and its lenses. But alas, no such offer came.  What did come was a coupon: 10% off for trade in before sixty days.

This is called marketing.

It is what drives commerce these days. Make them unsatisfied with what they have and make them want more, more, and still more.  Fast, lighter, thinner and better.  Must have. Gotta Have. Can’t live without it. And so it goes.

It is the very essence that drives the numbers on Wall Street. There is never such a thing as enough. There has to be more, more and more to come.  And it has to be purchased now.

Even my new car, which just turned a year old yesterday is already being sought by dealers in an offer to put me into the very best sedan the company has ever manufactured. Ever!

When will it end?  Where will it end?

I guess in my office.  I like my current camera.  I am keeping it.  And my car?  It isn’t even broken in yet.  May drive it to 300,000 miles. Take that Madison Avenue and Wall Street. I am satisfied.

Suddenly, I feel quite good. In my small way, I have fought back. Screw ‘em.