Can That New School Outfit Make You (or Your Kid) Content?

Back to school shopping and contentment. You might not think the two topics relate, but stay with me here. Think back to when you were a school-aged person. Remember what made you at least a little excited about going back to school (and for most of us, that wouldn’t be sitting at a desk all day or doing homework)? Was it your new Wonder Woman or Patridge Family lunch box? Or maybe that cool Trapper Keeper your mom finally let you have. Maybe you spent hours shopping for, and then modeling in front of your bedroom mirror, that new first-day-of-school outfit.

Now think back with me some more: how long were you happy with those things? That lunchbox was probably pretty cool for a few weeks, maybe even the whole school year, or at least until it got dented when you accidentally dropped it down the stairs. The Trapper Keeper might have satisfied you only until you had long enough to stuff it full. Then once you realized how heavy it was, it might not have been “all that”.

And the outfit? Now we’re treading on dangerous ground. The staying power of a new set of clothes might only last as far as the edges of the playground. It did for me. I remember one year going to school on “casual dress day” (at my parochial school this is what they called special days where you didn’t have to wear a uniform). I was wearing what I thought was high fashion. I had on a new shirt and… a pair of culottes, those wide-legged knee-length pants that were all the rage in the ‘70’s. But here’s the thing: when I arrived at school, I stood at the edge of the blacktop looking out across the kids playing there (my school had a parking lot for a playground – actually it still does). And among those kids, not a single girl was wearing culottes. And that’s when I learned that “fashion” is not for the faint of heart. Suddenly I didn’t want to be seen in my new outfit. I didn’t want to be different, no matter how “fashionable” it would have been. I turned and ran the entire eight blocks home to change clothes.

Now I’m not shopping for new school clothes for myself this year. And I’m not going to stop my kids from picking out an outfit that they think is “fashionable” for the first day of school. But as we approach back to school shopping, I’m reminded of how we tend to rely on external things, like outfits and lunchboxes, smart phones and minivans, to give us satisfaction through their potential to effect our “image”. But if we’re not content with ourselves without those props, chances are, we won’t be any more so with them. And whatever satisfaction we gain from them will be only momentary.

We are made to be more than consumers, more than people labeled by our accessories. We’re made to be image bearers of the One who made us. If we can find our satisfaction in that, then it won’t matter how we accessorize on the outside. The new back-to-school gear (or whatever it is that we adults shop for this time of year) will simply be another thing to enjoy for itself and not for what it does for our image. And that’s contentment for back to school and beyond.