“Keeping up with the Jones’s” is a phrase that has become integrated into our modern society as a view pertaining to the peer pressure of materialistic conformance. Remodeling, renovating, expanding, increasing, upgrading – all are words that encompass the very ideals and pursuits of our consumerist-driven, acquisitive, and avaricious society. We long for more, for bigger, for grander, for larger-scale, more technically advanced or modern convenience, we strive to attain acquisition and wealth that attracts the image of success and conform to be trend-followers who fall quickly into step with the latest fashions, mod-cons, styles and gadgets. For every superficial and momentary gain offered by our materialistic conquest, we live our lives running the unfulfilling treadmill of conformance which has little to offer but a false illusion of success and a buildup of debt as a result of living well beyond our means.

I was talking with my father a few days ago and our conversation turned to this very discussion – the acquisition of wealth and the false illusion of success. As I pondered society?s interpretation of success, this phrase “Keeping up with the Jones” reared its head as the very driving force behind the consumerist ideals our society have so readily adopted. I began then to wonder whether there was any validity in its origins, whether this phrase was coined from a real-life scenario of trying to ‘out do’ the neighbors or whether it is simply the re-interpretation of a pre-existing societal value. I discovered to my surprise that the origin of this phrase was founded in a comic strip launched in 1913 by cartoonist Arhur R. Momand.

Momand lived in a community where many people tried to keep up with the Joneses. Momand and his wife resided in Cedarhurst, New York, one of Long Island’s Five Towns, where the average income is still among America’s highest. Living ‘far beyond our means in our endeavor to keep up with the well-to-do class,’ the Momands were wise enough to quit the scene and move to Manhattan, where they rented a cheap apartment and ‘Pop’ Momand used his Cedarhurst experience to create his once immensely popular ‘Keeping Up with the Joneses’ comic strip. Momand first thought of calling the strip ‘Keeping Up with the Smiths,’ but ‘finally decided on ‘Keeping Up with the Joneses’ as being more euphonious.’ His creation ran in American newspapers for over 28 years and appeared in book, movie, and musical-comedy form, giving the expression ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ the wide currency that made it a part of everyday language.”

We keep up with the Jones’s, we have our gardens perfectly manicured, our hedges precisely trimmed, we have the white picket fences erected and the brightly painted letterboxes that demand a second look – but do we keep up with ourselves? Do we bind ourselves to the very weaknesses we scrutinize in others – debt, bankruptcy – not only in the physical sense but in our emotional health and well being? Keeping up with the Joneses is an illusion of success that has no depth, no meaning, no fulfillment and no longevity? it keeps us moving forward, striving for the ultimate perfection of success but along the way it bankrupts us of our life force – our significance, our truth, our expression of self and for what gain? We may one day attain this ‘ultimate perfection of success’ but if it lies purely in materialistic gain and the commanding of or foreboding upon other’s riches – it will be an empty success void of any truth, life or unadulterated gain. The end truth of Keeping up with the Joneses presents us with a very somber reality – a purposeless, barren and meaningless life.