this wasn't in the plan |but life is still pretty good

Have you ever read this clever tale by Dr. Seuss? There are two varieties of Sneetches, those with stars on their bellies and those without. The star bellied Sneetches think they're all that and want nothing to do with the non-starred Sneetches, who long to have stars so they can be cool too. Along comes Sylvester McMonkey McBean, who for only $3 will allow the non-starred Sneetches to take a walk through his special machine that will put a star on their bellies - so they can be just like the Sneetches they admire so much. Then he turns to the star-bellied Sneetches and tells them that for $10 they can walk through his star-off machine. This goes on and on until the Sneetches have no more money and no longer remember who had the stars in the first place.
The moral of the story? There are many, but what caught my eye this time through was that the all too common "keeping up with the Jones'" syndrome will just get you in trouble. Why did the non-starred Sneetches want that star so badly? Why weren't they content to have their own parties and play their own games? Why did they want to associate with a group that didn't like them simply because they didn't have a star?

Sure, this story had a happy ending (they all became friends since they didn't really know who was who anymore), but they sure did loose their identity all because they were after something someone else had, not to mention their money.

Photo from Amazon.com