My freshman year of college I took Psychology of Religion. It was one of the greatest classes I ever took. It assigned two books. One was my favorite book of all time, Sheldon Vanauken's A Severe Mercy. The other, a book by Erich Fromm, To Have or To Be.

Fromm's book had an interesting premise. He position was that a century ago we were a "being" culture. 100 years and an industrial revolution later, we are now a "having" culture.

One classic example was how a century ago, when referencing marriages, men would say that they are a husband or that they are married. Now, Fromm says, men have a wife. We went from a state of existence to a state of possession.

Same rings true with children and jobs and hobbies and pretty much everything.

And the problem is much larger than just a semantic one.

When I was in 7th grade I took French. The first verb I learned was être - "to be." The second verb I learned was aller - "to go." The third verb I learned was avoir - "to have."

It was far more important for me to know Je suis Américain² before I learned J'ai une voiture.³

Why? Because even at the core of language, being and existing is more fundamental to our human experience than having and owning.

The problem is that in our increasing materialistic world the inverse seems to be true.

Fromm explains the rise in divorce as one of an identity crisis. If marriages are possessions, then like all possessions, when we tire of the marriage we drop it for a new one. As apposed to the idea that if at our core, our existence is tied to that marriage, to drop the marriage would be to drop one's existence - which we would be far less inclined to do.

It truly is a challenge to overcome the social pressure of the "having" culture - and it doesn't get easier with age. I find myself comparing myself to the neighbors and friends far more than I ever did before.

Henry David Thoreau once wrote, "It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly." I think that is a sentiment Fromm would agree with, and one I should pay more attention to.