A boy runs up to his mother, blue box in hand, hoping. He has found the perfect box, the perfect figurine, the perfect hero. No toy he owns has the silver curves, the moving joints, or the ability to transform. No toy on the shelf has the suave voice of the figurine, nor the free getaway car included with the purchase of two. No toy will ever make him as happy as this one—at least until the next Wal-Mart trip. Twenty years later, the boy strolls up to his wife, blue box in hand, hoping. The camera is a 7.1 mega-pixel stud—he will be complete if his wife lets him buy the DL5533. He will be the happiest man on earth—at least until the DL5534 comes out. The cycle will continue forever, the cycle of wants, the cycle of desires, the cycle of evil. The cycle will lose the boy friends, gain him rivals, and form the root of much of the suffering in his life, as material happiness establishes itself as his sole purpose. Each materialistic goal only contributes to the suffering of its owner, as his desire transforms him into a beast filled with greed, lust, and eventually hatred.

It follows, then, that materialism brings only sadness to the Choate campus. Choaties, after all, are expert materialists: whether we crave the iPhone, the varsity letter, the perfect report card, the college application, the nice coat, or the new video game system, the Choate student has always had desire imbued in his soul. On one hand, such desire has always been his recipe for success—he came to Choate, after all, seeking to shine, to graduate, to gain the things that he believed would complete him. He became a varsity athlete, after all, thanks to his craving a spot on the team above all else. What he fails to realize is that, regardless of whether he makes the varsity team or not, he will never be happy, however much he convinces himself otherwise.

Consider the two results that could ensue from our Choatie’s quest for varsity glory. Either the boy makes the team, or he doesn’t. Either way, the boy will have twisted himself, pushed himself by the minute, choked his social life, and spent long nights working out for the end of placing his first pin on his varsity letter. He will have suffered, knowingly or not. If he doesn’t make the team, the desire, the hunger for making the team only wrenches him further, causing him initially to be angry at the varsity coaches and then to push himself fervently even further than he has, fueled by anger. If he does make the varsity team, he revels in his success for a few minutes, only to move on to his next goal. His joy quickly diminishes after his first practice, when new goals—perhaps the perfect SAT—wrench him into further ambition, further desire, further greed, and further suffering.

Indeed, material pleasure is a transient phenomenon. What many do not see, however, is that there is no material happiness. We, after all, are no different than the boy who wants every toy he sees: that boy thinks he’ll be happy upon buying a Transformer, but enjoys playing with the toy for only a few weeks before moving on to a new set of Legos. The boy, however, also forgets the slight disappointment he experienced when he opened his Transformer; the toy wasn’t all it seemed, and couldn’t have been, because he had persuaded himself that his toy would complete him. Of course, no toy could have done that, and neither could the gold pin on Choatie’s big, gold chenille.

Of course, our survival depends on the existence of material goods; we couldn’t exist without food, houses, or, sadly, money. That doesn’t mean, however, that we need a boundless reserve of material goods. It does mean that we do best when we live our lives in moderation, understanding that though we need material goods, we only need them in limited quantities.

How often, after all, do we simply pray to God asking Him to make us happy, and how many more times do we pray that we get an A on the upcoming history test? How often do we call our parents just to thank them, and how many more times do we whine at them for delaying in sending us a package?

In a society of class, of wealth, of well-intentioned, ambitious people, we could all do well by abstaining a bit more from avarice, and by understanding that while we can never be happy with what we have, will bring us satisfaction greater than any wealth ever could.