Is Shoppertainment Even a Word?

Been reading "Flunking Sainthood" and loving it. Basically it's an entertaining  memoir of Jana Riess as she tries and fails at different Christian like exercises. Chapter five is entitled May, nixing shoppertainment where she takes the philosophy of simplicity and avoids purchasing or taking part in any wants for the month of May. I like to imagine this being quite easy for me to do for the mere fact alone that shopping is not my idea of a good time.

A quote from G.K. Chesterton is pinned on page 59. "There are two ways to get enough: one is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less". Simple statement, but spoken so plainly really resonates. I find the older I get, the more I want. This coming from a professed simpleton, the irony not escaping me.

Riess speaks about an acquaintance who has everything she could ever want, always one uping herself with the next great purchase only to be incapable of sustaining great love for that item for any real length of time before she sets out to find another to rests her wants on. Ironically the acquaintance was also just coming out of a face lift surgery when according to Reiss, she was already quite beautiful and well kept for her age. Even possibly admired for her beauty she could not see in herself.

Jana ends the story of her friend with my favorite (up to this point in the book) realization:

    "Perhaps no work is more foundational to the individual embodying Christian simplicity in the world than our becoming comfortable in our own skin. The less comfortable we are with ourselves, the more we will look to things around us for comfort. The more assured we are with ourselves, the less assurance we will need from things outside us."

A noble quest. A reasonable goal- to be comfortable in my own skin. I don't profess to be uncomfortable and lacking complete assurance in myself , but I imagine on a spectrum between that and complete comfortableness and assurance, I have likely caught myself purchasing a face lift or two that I did not need. This coming from a female who detests all forms of beautification by alteration and believes in loving oneself regardless of fill in the blank.

This book is a good read. Did I mention that I'm loving it? Jana Riess is even LDS, though you wouldn't know it, and secretly I like that. Her humor and insight is amazing.