What about ownership?

A great deal of our time on earth (especially in the United States) is spent acquiring things. These objects quickly become part of our identity. Some are acquired because they are helpful, some are acquired because they are enjoyable, and some are acquired because they improve our perceived status in comparison with other people.

The concept of ownership is easily seen as illusion. We come into this world owning nothing, and we leave with nothing. Thus, things are just used while we are living our lifetime. It's interesting that ownership is so readily acknowledged as not real, and yet we spend so much time pursuing it and so much of our identity is tied up with it.

Ownership even extends from things to traits and conditions. It's very common to hear people use possessive pronouns to describe characteristics and situations. "My personality. . . my asthma, her diabetes, his problem, their unemployment, my anger, her addiction, his alcoholism, etc" It's plain to see from our language that we view our possessions and traits as part of WHO and WHAT we are, even though ownership itself is very clearly not real.

People who will admit this will quickly shift from ownership to activity. They will acknowledge that we are not defined by what we HAVE, but then they will claim we are defined by what we DO.

Doing. That's a topic for another post.