Consumerism – Minimalist Moments

22nd Jan 2021

Wearing Blood: Will You Pay The True Cost?

I’ve been a minimalist for a couple of years, and when you’ve been minimalist for a good while, something changes inside you. You start thinking about the Earth and the people and animals who share it with us. It’s as if there’s suddenly space to think about something bigger than ourselves.

Most of us drift through life buying what we want when we want. Now the internet has made it even easier for us to buy things on a whim. Everywhere we go advertisements follow us, convincing us we’re undesirable, unfashionable, and lacking, despite our wardrobes and cupboards spilling out.

A few weeks ago I watched a documentary called The True Cost (also available to watch on Amazon Prime). Perhaps you’ve heard of it? The true cost is about the fast fashion industry and what our clothing choices do to the people that make them. I turned on this documentary thinking it would tell me what I already knew – that people in the countries making our clothes are poor and work in dangerous conditions.

As it turns out, I knew very little.

Let me tell you, The True Cost is a hard watch. Hard but essential. Not even my husband could watch it the whole way through because it made him so angry. I could see him out the corner of my eye shaking his head in disgust and the corners of his mouth downturned.

I don’t think there’s anybody who can watch this and not be affected because it’s so human and so powerful. It’s as if someone rips the proverbial curtain of your reality down and tears it up beyond repair.

This documentary is nothing like the stuff they showed you at school – people cry, people get killed in the street, beat to death or shot for trying to stand up for better working conditions. I held back tears when I saw an ordinary man standing up for his rights get killed, and the people who knew him were devastated.

Mothers work such long hours they only get to see their young children twice a year who are brought up by other villagers. The heartbroken mother who was interviewed for the documentary, explains that she works so much so that one day her child may have a better future.

Women like her put their lives at risk every day working in unsafe buildings such as the Dhaka garment factory in India, which collapsed in 2013. The death toll was 1,134, and The True Cost shows the footage of people falling to bits after members of their family were found dead or still buried under the rubble.

A previous incident back in 2012 saw the Tarzeen garment factory in Bangaldesh catch fire while all the exits were locked and the windows downstairs barred. 112 workers died and the rest permanently injured themselves from jumping out of the top floor windows.

But they’re not the only death tolls. There’s also the suicides by the farmers who owned the cotton fields; over 250,000 of them who ended up in debt because they were forced to buy genetically modified seeds to meet our clothing demand and make the big CEO’s rich.

Oh, and we’re murdering the planet to impress people we don’t like before we tire of our attire.

In India, the river Kanpur is polluted with Chromium 6 because of cheap leather being tanned. This pollution is slowly killing the villagers who live nearby and giving children crippling physical and mental disabilities. There’s also the towering mountains of discarded trash and clothing.

Here’s a horrifying fact for you: the fast fashion industry is second only to the oil industry for the damage it’s doing to our planet. Let that sink in for a moment.

We’re destroying the beauty of Earth which has been here for over 4.5 billion years, to look good for a day, a week or a month.

What’s that? You think you’re OK if you simply donate to the charity shops? Think again. Most of our clothing goes to landfill where it will rot for thousands of years due to the unnatural materials and polyester used to make them, and the rest ends up in third world countries where it provides jobs but kills their local clothes making trades and prevents development.

By continuing to consume as we are we’re telling these companies and brands that it’s perfectly fine to treat other humans like worthless money printers so long as we can’t see them and get to save a few pennies. That these human lives on the other side of the world are worth less than the $2 a day they earn making these clothes.

One scene showing hundreds of people going crazy in a clothes store on Black Friday sickened me. They went at those clothes like rabid wild animals. Mindless. Greedy. Zero respect for whatever they grabbed in the frenzy.

After watching The True Cost, I found it hard to sleep. I’d recently decluttered a load of clothes from fast fashion stores. Cheap dresses, cheap jeans and £6 tops from Primark filled my wardrobe and drawers.

The factories that make these clothes have no choice but to make clothes on the cheap because as shops over in the west compete for the cheapest prices, so do the CEO’s in charge of the big fashion chains. This means they go over to these factories and tell them that unless they can make tops for 2 dollars or less they will take their business elsewhere.

The people who own those factories then have no choice if they want to keep feeding their families, and the workers then suffer even more under endless hours and poor working conditions that kill many like in the Dhaka factory collapse incident. The sad thing is, there’s often no better alternative for the workers.

The fashion industry is a corrupt system that has gone unchecked for far too long, becoming ruthless and greedy. But as consumers we have a choice. We can take our business elsewhere and only shop with ethical brands. Only by more and more people making ethical choices can we hope to force change.

Brands see money, not people.

We need to change that so that people just like you and I can feed their families, spend time with their children, and not risk their lives in unsafe factories. We need to dry their tears and stop filling our wardrobes with their blood. We have the power.

19th Feb 202022nd Mar 2020

More, More, More – The Reasons You Can’t Stop Buying

We all buy things we don’t need from time to time. Unless we’re incredibly disciplined we get tempted by the seasonal sales, or the second we desire something new, it’s just a few clicks away.

But what happens when buying gets out of control? When everything you ever desired surrounds you but you still want more?

It’s a trap that’s easy to fall into, but for some, the cycle of purchasing can turn into a shameful nightmare.

You may not realise you have a problem until people in your household start commenting on the number of deliveries. You may deny you have a problem at all, especially to escape feelings of shame.

Or you might realise you have a problem, but find yourself unable to stop.

Signs that purchasing has got out of control in your life might include comments from family members about the number of deliveries, consistently low finances, feelings of shame and guilt, or a feeling of spiralling out of control.

You know you should stop spending but you can’t.

The clutter in your home is growing but you can’t control it.

You’re not any happier than before, but you’re convinced that the next purchase will help.

Well-meaning people in your life may try all sorts of things to get you to stop, but it’s not going to happen unless you understand what’s triggering you to buy or order things in the first place.

I wish I could tell you that it’s going to be easy, but it’s not. Not once you look past the surface level of the factors that make you fork over your cash.

Let’s take a look at these levels.

Surface level (Grass)

Influencing from marketers, sale items, emails, peer pressure, images and messages of success and happiness.

The surface level includes the factors above which may seem obvious to yourself or others.

We’re all subject to advertisements on our screens and in the streets, we all love a good bargain, and it’s likely that at some point your friends convinced you to buy those new jeans, that new makeup set, or that awesome new videogame.

We’re also surrounded by false messages and images all the time that money + stuff = happiness + success.

Of course, happiness can never be achieved through endless material gains, but our world is set up to make you believe that.

Deeper level (Mud)

Comparison with others, the feeling of not having enough, shopping addiction, wanting to project a certain image, chasing everlasting happiness

These are the feelings that make us even more susceptible to the surface level factors above.

With constant access to the internet, it’s easier than ever to compare ourselves to the people around us. Before the internet, we had to walk down the street or look out at our neighbours shiny new car to start feeling jealous or inadequate.

Now, all we need to do is look on Instagram, Facebook or Youtube to see who’s sexier, richer, more popular, and living more exciting lives than us.

Some people want to project a certain image so that they will appeal to a certain group of people, or to look as if their life is more extravagant than it is.

All of it is to chase this need for everlasting happiness that all of us strive for.

Separate to all of those is shopping addiction, where people have found themselves caught up in a hellish cycle of buying that they can’t get out of, usually due to underlying emotional problems.

Deepest level (Fossil)

Boredom, depression, needing a buzz, unresolved issues in life, insecurity, identity issues, trying to fill a void or solve an issue with material stuff, need to feel in control if other things are in complete chaos, struggling in the past.

Underneath all desires for material possessions (which don’t include needs for survival) are the deep-seated reasons and feelings that drive us.

Deep down, you might buy things because you’re bored and can’t discover your passion.

People insecure with who they are might buy lots of things to try to figure it out or to fill the void. For example, someone who isn’t an artist might buy a load of painting tools because they want to create something great but haven’t yet figured out their passion.

Someone else might buy loads of makeup and dresses when they don’t even like makeup and dresses, just because they feel ugly, or aren’t sure of their image.

Some people suffer with depression or feel empty inside, then attempt to fill the void with material possessions.

For others, buying and ordering goods is the only thing they feel in control of.

Even a person’s past can play a part. If all someone has known is poverty and struggling, and suddenly they have the power to surround themselves with the things they never had, buying and surrounding themselves with stuff might be a comfort or reassurance.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, someone who has always been surrounded by things might be unable to find satisfaction without buying something new every week (this one is definitely a part of me that I regularly battle).

Now we’ve looked at the different levels of feelings which can trigger us to buy things we don’t need, let’s look at the feelings you might experience before, during, and after an impulse purchase.

First, know that for the most part, dopamine is responsible.

This is the feel good chemical that our brain releases whenever we do something pleasurable such as make a purchase, drink alcohol, receive a like on Facebook, or complete a level in a game. It can become very addictive and many companies exploit the dopamine hit that people chase to keep your attention.

And here are the feelings that might be familiar to you at the three different stages of making a purchase.

Feelings after impulse purchases

Elation, excitement, impatience, a rush, anticipation.

You can’t wait to get the item home and see what it will look like on your shelf or your body. It also felt great to buy something new. You feel the excitement and anticipation of the delivery coming to your door, or from the shop to your home.

Feelings after receiving the item

Emptiness, sudden drop in satisfaction level, shame, embarrassment, guilt, exhaustion from wasted energy and possibly making a return, panic at finances.

The initial rush from making a purchase wears off as fast as the dopamine hit. And that’s fast. Eventually, buying things we know we don’t need can lead to the negative feelings above.

I know because I’ve been there myself plenty of times.

The item never gave me the happiness I was sure it would give me at the time, and then comes the shame and embarrassment, and the realisation that the money could have been better spent investing in a skill or saving.

The shame can be tripled when returns have to be made and family members see it happening again and again.

Not to mention, the financial burden caused by impulse purchases can lead to even more stress and shame, and cause arguments with family members.

Ways we might try to deal with the after feelings

Buying more stuff, hiding the stuff, reselling or returning the item, adding it to the hoard and convincing ourselves we must keep it as we spent money and time on it, drinking or other coping device, shoving it in a cupboard and forgetting about it, denial (making up stories as to why we had to have it, or that there is isn’t a problem).

Believe it or not, people who have a problem with impulse buying or who have a shopping addiction often try to get rid of the negative feelings by buying yet more stuff. Others might hide the stuff and how much they spent from the people around them.

This can become a vicious and never ending cycle.

Alcohol and other coping mechanisms may also pose a problem for those trying to escape the shame and other bad feelings inside.

As you can see, there’ are a lot of factors to consider that might cause you to get trapped in a cycle of buying.

The only way to escape is to look at the deepest part of yourself which your purchases might be covering or compensating for, then take steps to deal with the issues themselves.

While some issues, such as boredom, can be more easily solved, painful issues relating to your past or mental health might require some sort of therapy or seeing your doctor.

Without pulling out or killing the roots, weeds will keep coming back, sometimes bigger and more numerous than before.

It’s the same with our inner selves.

If we don’t recognise and treat the underlying cause, we’re doomed to forever fall victim to the resulting behaviour or activity.

16th Feb 2020

Upcoming Post – Do You Really Need That?

Are you struggling in a never-ending cycle of buying things you don’t need? Do you feel lost if you’ve not got a parcel on the way? If so, stay tuned for this week’s upcoming post which is all about what keeps us stuck in the cycle, and why you might feel the need for more, even when you know you have enough.

With this post, I won’t just be talking about the usual ‘marketers want to keep us buying’ but am going to focus on the emotional and deep-seated reasons that can cause us to compulsively click ‘buy’.

22nd Jan 2020

The Helping Hand of Failure – Why I Recover Faster

I’m not perfect.

Nobody’s perfect.

Yet there’s this expectation in society that if you don’t have a high-profile job and don’t own the latest and greatest stuff, you’re no good.

Marketers constantly try to convince you you’re lacking in life if you don’t own the latest phone, celebrity endorsed cologne, or the sexiest sofa.

You’re not a good parent

You’re not a good runner

You’re not beautiful enough

Not smart enough

Not cool enough

Not happy with your life

But that’s OK because if you buy today, you can rest assured that you’ll be the envy of your friends, and you’ll be so much more interesting.

We rarely realise it, but after a while, those messages add up into an essay about how much we lack, and life starts to feel intensely unsatisfying. Depressing, even.

While embracing minimalism definitely made me see that happiness doesn’t come from a delivery van, it certainly hasn’t made me immune to slipping up and making bad decisions.

On this blog, I talk about achieving goals a lot and simplifying your life so that you can discover what’s really important to you. I even share my successes so that you can hopefully start to realise the potential in you.

But what I don’t talk about often enough are my failures along the way. The times where I take five steps up the ladder but fall down ten.

Let’s face it, even though we need failure to grow, it’s embarrassing to talk about and even scarier to experience.

First off, here’s a little bit about me so that you get a little bit of context: I’m generally happy and cheerful (sometimes to an annoying degree according to my husband), I have several obsessions including writing, reading, gaming, minimalism, and self-growth.

Come into my living room, and you will see that everything is a calming white and pastel green with loads of empty space. I’ve got my future planned out, an incredible family, and quality friends.

But it wasn’t always like that, and sometimes I fall into the same quicksand I had escaped before, slowly sinking back into old habits and ways of thinking.

I used to be a hoarder. Not the kind of hoarder you see on those TV shows, but an organised hoarder. I was in serious denial about how much I owned. It caused arguments with my fiance, and allowed me to carry on hiding behind my stuff.

You can read the story here, but basically, I was keeping it all because I was deeply unhappy, didn’t believe in myself, and identified strongly with my past.

It took my mum bringing it all down to my house and my husband threatening to bin the lot, for me to finally confront the lonely memories and dusty old beliefs that kept me clinging on.

Now, I am living and loving a minimalist lifestyle but although I’m reaping all the benefits, I’m not totally free of my old coping mechanisms.

You see, minimalism will make your life a hell of a lot calmer and easier, and it will help you to discover yourself, but it won’t solve every problem for you. Especially those that are nestled deep inside.

It also won’t cure bad habits because they won’t go straight in the trash with your physical clutter. Rather, they get recycled into new, useful habits.

Sometimes, when things get me down like an argument, symptoms of chronic illness, or even writer’s block, I will find myself clicking over to Amazon and Ebay. Other times, I just feel stale in myself, like a mouldy piece of bread.

Suddenly, the bag I bought just months before has a fault and I need a new one. I need a new game despite having a mile long list of unplayed titles. I could really do with that lovely looking lunch box as it will ensure my food doesn’t leak in my backpack (despite never having that issue).

Of course, those are all elaborate stories I weave in my mind which will lead to me buying the product of interest.

As I click ‘buy’ I feel the anticipation of the item’s arrival and start getting rid of things that are relatively new. The dopamine rushes through me, even though I know deep down that two clicks and a parcel won’t bring me satisfaction.

But my brain doesn’t care about that fact because of the temporary feelings of elation.

Days later, the package comes, and as the packaging goes in the bin, so does my excitement. I realise I didn’t really need it, that I could have saved the money, invested in more skills, or gone on a day trip.

‘Call yourself a minimalist? Ha! You’re a phoney, you’re weak’, my brain chatters.

Just to be clear, I don’t have a shopping addiction, because these slips ups don’t happen very often. But the shame is no less intense, and the bad decisions can lead to me making other bad choices such as eating a luxurious helping of Nutella on toast when I know I’m gluten intolerant, or having a second glass of wine even though I know I’ve had enough.

However, unlike in the past, I find that I can get back up from the fall much faster than before. The injury doesn’t go as deep.

I know that I’m not a phony because I strongly believe in what I practise and what I say. As sickening as it sometimes feels, I acknowledge my mistakes, and that makes me self-aware.

Experiencing failure makes you feel like masking the feelings that come with it, and all the mean things the gremlin in your brain might be hissing at you.

But here’s the thing: the more failures you have, the more wise and resilient you become. You grow. You learn. You start to become aware of why you made those bad choices.

I’ve discovered that, generally, when I’m craving something new and making up stories of validation, it’s not the stuff I’m craving but experiences.

It’s not a new outfit I’m after, but love and acceptance.

I don’t want to own new stuff, I want to see new places, learn new skills, walk a new path, blossom into who I know I can be.

However, even though I’ve taken action and forged a new path for myself, the path is long, sometimes a forest gets in the way, and you know how excruciating it can be when what you want is just a little bit further, and a little bit further.

But what we often forget is to enjoy that journey. We can get so focused on hacking through that forest that we don’t see the beauty, or notice the undergrowth teeming with life.

The trick is, to not lurk in that beautiful forest for too long, and if you fall, get right back up.

Remember who you are and what you stand for, and walk hand-in-hand with failure no matter how scary, because it is your best teacher, and your greatest friend.

30th Nov 2019

The Lies You Must See Through to Reach True Happiness

I used to think I wanted to be rich.

I pictured myself winning the lottery and living in a huge house, hanging out and partying with friends and family.

There would be so much space that people would be conversing in every room, and there would be so much to do. Video games, sports, a massive selection of alcohol.

I imagined all the stuff I would have in my home: an arcade, a library, a bar, a cinema, a massive kitchen complete with a family chef.

I’d finally have enough room for all the stuff I wanted and never have storage problems again.

Nobody would be bored or want for anything, especially not me. And best of all, I’d be able to enjoy it because I’d never have to work another day in my life. I’d be happy!

Then I discovered minimalism.

And I slowly came to realise that what I thought I wanted was a big fat lie.

Lies that had been sold to me through the media and through every dopamine rush I experienced whenever I acquired something new.

Despite having so many luxuries and so much stuff, I wasn’t happy.

Back when I was a child I was spoiled. On Christmas and birthdays, presents would be piled to the rafters, and my parents bought me whatever I desired throughout the rest of the year.

The trouble was, I always wanted more, and that pattern continued into my adult life. I also had a real problem with letting go of things from my past.

When I started minimising, I felt an amazing sense of freedom, but something else started to happen as well – I no longer desired the latest smartphone, or a hundred books, or a game room filled to the brim like the collectors I admired on Youtube.

It’s also become virtually impossible to tell family and friends what I want for Christmas or my birthday because, truthfully, there’s very little I desire.

If you’d asked me that question two years before, I wanted so much that it was hard for me to choose what to ask for. The things I didn’t get, I could find in the January sales.

But now I realise that I never needed a bigger house, or any of the other luxuries I craved.

The more I’ve downsized my collections, the more I’ve realised I didn’t need a bigger house or more storage. A bigger house would just mean more maintenance and time wasted. And I’ve never been a party animal.

The reason I was so unhappy was because I wasn’t challenging myself.

I was living in mediocrity, staying at the same level I always had, doing the same job I’d always done, and was content letting my husband take care of the important stuff. After all, I was looked after and fine, so why change anything?

I soon learned just how dangerous that mindset was.

One day, he was driving us to work as usual, and we had a near miss with another car who pulled out on us from the left. As he swerved to avoid it, another car was coming at full speed from up ahead. I started screaming and my life flashed through my brain at a thousand miles an hour.

Mainly all the stuff I hadn’t done.

If my husband hadn’t had super-sonic reflexes that morning, we wouldn’t be here today and this blog never would’ve started.

For the rest of the day, I felt shaky and couldn’t stop thinking about what would happen if I died without accomplishing what I wanted in life. I also came to the sickening conclusion that I’ve always been looked after, and if anything happened to him, I would be as helpless as a child.

Life can be taken away in an instant. Dreams extinguished along with it.

Minimalism has revealed that I don’t need stuff to make me happy. I need to be able to stand on my own two feet.

I need to be fulfilled. I need to help others. I need to become a full-fledged author and a successful counsellor. I need to make an impression on the world – not my stuff.

That’s why when my husband asked what I wanted for Christmas this year, I was delighted when he suggested that he pay some money towards my training rather than something else that will end up forgotten on a shelf.

I was also more than happy when, for my birthday, my mother paid for my hair to be done. She said she would rather get me something useful than something I would shove in a drawer.

Photo by Kyle Gregory Devaras on Unsplash

After a year of feeling misunderstood as a minimalist, I can’t even begin to express how much that meant to me.

Now, I also want to say that it’s totally OK to enjoy giving gifts at Christmas, or to ask for a physical possession, as long as it’s something that’s well thought out, and will be loved for a long time, rather than something that will give a quick dopamine hit and end up in a charity shop by summer.

What I want is to invest in my future so that I can be fulfilled and support myself and my family. I want to be of value to others and to enjoy myself in the process.

Does that mean giving up every physical thing I enjoy? No. Of course not. And I’m not ungrateful when people do buy me things because that would make me into an asshat. Being ungrateful for how others choose to show their love is also a surefire way to end up miserable and frustrated.

What it does mean is being grateful for what I do have, and understanding that what I need for true happiness has always been right in front of me. It’s always been waiting for me to wake up and take action to get it.

A torrent of constant advertising, comparing myself to others, and wanting what I saw on Youtube was blinding me to that truth.

With that in mind, I ask, are you living a life of blind consumerism? Are you surrounding yourself with stuff, thinking you’ll finally be happy if you unwrap that one thing you always wanted?

What’s your true happiness?

16th Nov 201916th Nov 2019

How Rampant Consumerism is Destroying Us

I’ve been watching a riveting anime called Dr Stone. In it, a mysterious wave of light suddenly washes over Earth and turns everybody into stone. 3,700 years later, the world has reverted back to how it was before humans became advanced, and the humans that break out have to survive and rebuild civilisation.

So many things in this anime have stood out to me, but one which has stuck in my mind is how quickly everything can be taken away in a flash, whether that’s by natural disaster, or from unfortunate circumstances.

The humans who found themselves 3,700 years in the future had to start from scratch; foraging for food, hunting, building basic shelter, surviving wild animal attacks, and encountering other humans who’d made their own rules.

There were no smartphones, no TV, no convenience shopping, no electricity, no doctors, and no medicine.

Dr Stone shows just how much we take for granted in today’s modern world.

All humans want happiness, and too often we try to achieve that by buying the things which we believe will make us happy and which marketers have convinced us we need: a new phone, the latest fashions, the latest car, the best smelling cologne, the shiniest, most expensive jewellery, the latest tablet/laptop, the biggest TV, I could go on forever here.

Another thing which struck me in Dr Stone, was how much vegetation had taken over where entire towns and cities once stood. It made me think about how much damage us humans have actually done to our planet.

How many trees get chopped down to make new products – many of which we don’t actually need but believe will make us happy?

How much oil gets consumed just to make the fast fashion that so many of us end up binning?

What really makes humans happy is a sense of community and belonging. Of having some place and meaning in the world.

In his book’ The Compassionate Mind’, Paul Gilbert talks about how by 2020, depression will be the second most prevalent malady for humans. And guess what? Depression and anxiety has, indeed, skyrocketed.

Gilbert goes on to say that back in the 60’s people had a sense of community, helped each other out, and believed that technology would give us more time to be with the people we love, and to take care of ourselves.

Instead, technology has been used to increase productivity and place huge demands on people, more so than ever before. We now live in a society where everyone is rushed off their feet and busyness is looked upon more admirably than producing quality or meaningful work.

We live in a hive rather than a community. Tick boxes in place of what’s really important. Productivity in place of quality. As busyness has become a hidden expectation, it’s become the norm, and so has stress and mental health disorders.

Rush, rush, rush. Tick, tick, tick. Click, click, click. And what for? To make more money to own a bigger house, to afford everything influencers and the media tells us we need, and to fund the vices that helps us to cope in the resulting frantic, consumerist world.

Now, I’m not saying that buying things you need or will actually bring you joy is bad. Of course it isn’t. I’m talking about mindless, frantic consumerism here. Zombie-like consumption and trying to keep up with the joneses is no good for people, or the planet.

At the end of the day, everything is just stuff. Some of it makes our lives more convenient, some of it brings us joy, some of it is just there to make us look or feel good in front of others, and some of it we don’t even realise we have.

That being said, if you’re a fan of anime, go watch Dr Stone – it’s amazing!

7th Jun 2019

There’s Always More

Sometimes when we think about improving our lives, it’s ridiculously easy to fall into a trap of consumerism. This is because no matter what walk of life you come from, or what profession you’re in, there’s always a product out there to ‘perfect’ your life and make you into the person you’ve always dreamed of. There’s always one more thing you’re sure will make you happy this time around.

Photo by Ryan Moreno on Unsplash

Today, there’s a never-ending choice of products to make you more sexy, more elegant, more productive. A better parent, a better partner, a better gym goer. Famous, successful, irresistible.

If you’re a new parent, you might convince yourself you need the perfect diaper bag, perfect bottle set or perfect nappy dispenser.

If you struggle to get your life in order, there’s a huge variety of attractive planners which claim they’ll make you into a master of productivity and success.

If you’re a writer, then maybe that perfect pen, notebook, laptop, or software will help you write that book that’s been on the backburner.

If you’re single and looking, there’s a perfume or cologne out there which will draw every male or female within a ten-mile radius.

Once you’re ensnared in this trap, it’s hard to get out of because there’s always just one more thing you can add that will surely make your life complete. But you and I both know, that ‘satisfied’ feeling is as fleeting as the time it took you to take the item to the checkout or click it into your basket.

It’s not long before you’re looking for the perfect desk for that perfect notebook , or the next perfect laptop, because the other one you bought didn’t help you to start that book, afterall.

The cycle continues.

And it will continue until you realise that you already have everything you need – and it isn’t fancy software and material products.

You don’t become a better writer by buying a better laptop. No fancy software, hardware, notebook or pen will get your words down for you, or make your ideas better. Only the act of writing will do that.

You don’t become a better parent by buying every toy in the bestsellers list, the best diaper bag or the trendiest pushchair. You do that by offering unconditional love, security, and a healthy environment for them to learn and grow.

You don’t become a better teacher by buying a bigger desk, you do that by consistently teaching quality content and connecting with individual students.

Admittedly, I’m a sucker for great writing software, beautiful planners, and fun toys for my son. But none of those things get me further ahead in life, and none of it adds to the relationship between me and my son. Only spending time can do that.

It’s my consistent actions that make me into a better person than yesterday, not stuff, and it’ll be your consistent actions that transform you into the person you want to become.

Photo by Kid Circus on Unsplash

Once you understand and apply this concept to your own situations, your life satisfaction will skyrocket. And if you constantly act towards the life that you envision, you’ll see progress every single day, no matter how small.

Less stuff, more action!

26th Apr 20193rd May 2019

Finding Yourself in A Consumerist World

On a beautiful spring day last week, whilst waiting for my friend in my town’s Memorial Garden, I got thinking about how people are remembered.

So many of us surround ourselves with stuff and get buried in our digital devices, our worth falsely represented by what we own instead of what we do. Did these war heroes fight so that we could buy the latest iPhone and one-up our neighbours? So that we could passively fritter our lives away behind screens? Or did they lay down their lives so that we could have a future and fulfil our true potentials.

People’s eulogies are never about the things they owned or the size of their abode, but how they lived, what they accomplished, how they treated others, and who was important to them. Think about all the famous and revered people who have passed away and who you learnt about at school. Whether they were rolling in money or begging for scraps, these people are remembered in history because of what they accomplished, for better or worse.

Why then, do we continue to accumulate so much stuff, stifling our true selves and squandering our precious hours in the pursuit of acquiring more and maintaining it all? In our consumerist society of advertisements and social media, it’s no wonder we’re feeling more and more pressured to keep up with our neighbours, friends, family, and even strangers on the other side of the globe. When does it stop?

Unless you actively decide to do something about it, it won’t. And by that I mean become mindful about your consumer habits and marketing tricks that have a subtle yet powerful effect on us all. It’s not just the tailored ads on social media that mirror your buying habits, but most websites you visit.

Thankfully, most websites now offer their users a chance to uncheck targeted ads and limit what data they can use. But in a rush to view the website, most people skip this step.

Another way marketers get into your brain is via emails, so unsubscribe from marketing emails, particularly when there’s likely to be sales and promotions around holidays. I’m not perfect – I’ve been guilty many times of succumbing to a tempting sale or promotional vouchers presented to me via emails. I’m no more immune to marketing strategies than the next person, but the difference is I’m much more mindful of what I allow into my inbox and what ads websites are allowed to display. Because of minimalism, I’m also aware of what I already possess.

The most important thing of all is to be mindful whenever you go to the shops. Do you really need that ice-cream maker, or are you just buying it to satisfy a deep-seated emptiness that a friendship or hobby could fulfil instead? Think about the maintenance and space which each item will occupy and if you do make a purchase, consider removing something else less useful to you.

It’s better to avoid shopping trips as a pastime, if you can. Such trips are usually born out of boredom and a desire to socialise with friends, but there are far more intriguing places to spend your time which doesn’t necessarily involve spending money. Plus, do you really want relationships to be built on a foundation of consumerism and subconsciously comparing stuff? I didn’t think so.

When we’re feeling bored or unsatisfied with our lives, it’s easier than ever before to fill that void and get a quick buzz from a purchase at any time of the day or night. Online shopping is available 24/7, always there as a temporary salve for negative emotions and a buzz of excitement for something new. That’s why I deleted all shopping apps from my phone, and if I’m on my PC, ensure that I log out of sessions so it’s not so convenient to check it out on a whim.

I try to avoid going into shops just for a browse (unless it’s a bookshop) because if I’m going for a browse it means I’m looking for ways to procrastinate from the things which will truly move my life forwards; things like working on my book and preparing my next blog post. You see, these things require hard work and focus, but the result is a far more satisfying and long-lasting buzz than anything from a store can provide.

Reading and writing nourishes me in a way that nothing else does: I need it like I need food, and without either, I become grumpy, listless, and prone to seeking meaningless dopamine hits from other sources. What’s your passion? If you’re unsure, don’t worry; once you take control of your possessions you can start steering your own destiny.

Be mindful, stay vigilant and realise your true potential. Above all, remember: you are always more valuable than any object.

How do you want to be remembered?