I have one suit

I recently got an email telling me to turn up for a corporate photo shoot - you know, so that we have a headshot to put on websites, namecards, LinkedIn etc. 

So the instructions were, pick two suits in different colours and shirt combinations, send them to our communications department, and they'll advise me on what makes sense (or not) for the shoot.

I assume my comms colleagues thought this was simple enough. How hard can that be right?

Unfortunately, they didn't account for me. I wrote back, "Guys. I have a problem."


"I have one suit."

"Black top, black pants."

"Court. Meetings. Speaking engagements. Weddings. Funerals."

"One suit."

"How?"

My comms colleague wrote back.

"When is your birthday?" 

Hahaha!

So anyway, I turned up with my one black suit, they stuck an orange pocket square in the jacket for colour, and we went with it!

=====

The episode reminded me of a recent devotion I wrote when I was reading through the book of Ecclesiastes, where it says:

"As goods increase, so do those who consume them. And what benefit are they to the owners except to feast their eyes on them?" Ecclesiastes 5:11

This age-old wisdom has today been reframed as the modern psychological theory called the hedonic treadmill (there really is nothing new under the sun, just as Solomon wrote!), in which it is observed that humans tend to return to the same level of happiness even after major positive events happen.

For example, as a person makes more money, his expectations and desires also rise, resulting in no net gain in happiness.

I remember having not quite enough money to buy all the furniture in my first matrimonial home. We had a TV (ha, now you know my priorities!) but no dining table or sofa or hall curtains. So my wife and I would sit on the floor to eat or watch TV.

When we saved up enough, we bought the dining table. Then later on, the sofa. We never ended up buying curtains before we moved out.

This has had a long lasting impact. Until today, my family's practice is still to sit on the floor to watch TV and eat dinner! I've lived in my current home for about 15 years, and I think I can count the number of times I've eaten at my dining table on my two hands. Our little coffee table is our real dining table!

I mean, I now have a sofa and a dining table. I finally even got around to installing hall curtains some years ago.  But I'm definitely not much happier after getting any of these things. In fact, it's only after I buy them, that somehow I start being dissatisfied and think about getting nicer ones! Crazy!

So, more stuff simply doesn't satisfy. Human appetites are never filled up with more stuff. But thank God that He truly satisfies. His stuff is really enough - His love, His joy, His peace, His purpose and His people.

=====

Bringing this back to the corporate photo shoot... 

I remember looking forward quite a lot to seeing the corporate photos, because the studio experience seemed like quite a glamorous experience to "sua ku" me. I even thought to myself, maybe I really should buy a new suit. After all, the rest of the world seems to have more than one suit. And my suit is already 8-9 years old.

A couple of weeks later, my comms colleagues showed me the photos. My immediate reaction? I mean, they're nice and all, but they're really not such a big deal. It didn't spark as much joy as I thought it would. 

And I started thinking, you know, there's another place I go to where I often wear the same clothes.

I have this $6 purple sports t-shirt I bought in JB several years ago, that's really thin and cooling, and a pair of $10 trackpants I bought off Shopee that are equally cooling. 

I almost always wear the same outfit when I visit my friends in Batam, because it can get quite hot in the school and when we walk to visit our friends at their homes.

And you know, when I look at the photos of me in my standard Batam outfit, that sparks joy in me. It really does.

Don't get me wrong. I like the satisfaction I get from work. I like getting paid and recognised for it. I like nice things like clothes, shoes and gadgets too. I'm really grateful for all of that, and I don't think it's necessarily wrong to like these things. 

But really, the thing that sparks joy is not the spiffy suit and everything associated with the "suit life". 

I just need to look at the smile on my face in my suit and pocket square photo when I'm the centre of attention, and compare that to the smile I have in my sports T and trackpants photo, when God is the centre of attention.

I have one suit. And that's enough.

I have one God. And super-satisfyingly, that's more than enough!

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Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life." John 4:13-14


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