I resist my Covetous Nature, but it overwhelms me. I am guilty of coveting.
To covet is to desire, to yearn for, to wish for something, most especially "things" and in most applications, the things belonging to others. When I was steeped in the steeple, I fought the affliction with prayer and guilt trips (always, the guilt trips). I tried to find more worthy, more holy things to yearn for. Maybe that was the root of my vaulting ambition that led me to o'erleap all common sense and work so very hard to establish the best darn service program ever...I was trying so hard not to covet others' things but to instead build something worthy of coveting. Some people do that with cars, houses, body building, trophy spouses...so I guess I thought "the best darn service program ever" was a less-materialistic, less-bad thing to build up that others might covet it. (This, of course, is the alternate sin of Pride--they'll get you every time!)
I mention coveting, for lately I've had it BAD. Today, for instance, we went to the Big Tool store, or something like that, at K15 and 63rd in Derby. I wanted things on every aisle, practically every shelf--but I didn't have enough money to even buy a pop from vending machine for my kid. I visited a hardware store recently, and again, there was so much I could use, so much I yearned for--and couldn't ever afford. We go to garage sales and get stuff cheap (I found a $60 Carhart jacket for $2 recently) but even then, slumming through garage sales, I find myself coveting everyone's yards, garages, tools, outbuildings, landscaping...
Just writing this makes me feel evil and rotten and creepy crawly all over again, as if I'd just been rolling in the grass. (Around here, the grass is chock-full of ticks and fleas.)
I wish I could unplug my obsessive covetousness. I'd like to think it would go away if I suddenly were independently wealthy. Nahhh. Maybe a lobotomy? Maybe a crash of the economy? Nope--I'm sure I'd still be wanting someone's milk churn or chicken eggs or ammunition bunker.
How does one become content instead of covetous?
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I struggle with this and also tend to try to fix it the same ways you described.
I commute from the suburbs to downtown Chicago and on my walk I used to pass a small art gallery that had this fantastic painting in it. It was abstract, I guess, just a swirl of colors. I loved it and was so sad that I would never get to see it on my own walls because I knew it must be too expensive for me.
One day I realized that I got to see this painting twice a day, 5 days a week. I looked forward to seeing it. If it was at home, it would probably be appreciated every once in a while but I bet mostly I wouldn't notice it because it would blend in like everything else I see all the time.
I decided to work on simply appreciating things for what they are, as they are, and not taking the next step into "I can only appreciate it if it's MINE."
It works . . . sometimes.
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