Something to not let this become
I don’t think that turning off consumerist thoughts, or it’s rough analogue in only buying used goods for a year, is going to be any sort of cure-all. Nor do I think I will ever be able to truly turn off the consumerist instinct, since it pervades so many pieces of our life.
A thing that bums me out, to some extent, is the idea that one particular life change is going to cure everything. Mark Manson is one of the few self-help gurus I respect because of the fact that he tries not to claim his ideas as a cure all. He thinks that selling meditation as the secret to enlightenment is bad news. I don’t want reducing consumption to turn into something like mindfulness, where I sell it to myself as some means of transcending the travails.
So, here are some thoughts as to what I hope this year without consumption will do. This will be how I grade the challenge itself: while the challenge grades my ability to not consume, we should also see if this challenge itself lends me the benefits below.
I don’t expect to be cured of consumerism. I will likely still look at the lightning deals on Amazon and Wayfair as a means to distract myself from the issues of everyday life. Consumerism is a societal disease, and so unless I can vaccinate all society from it, I will never attain a point of post-consumerism. I am happy to accept this defeat now.
I expect that reducing consumerist urges will allow me to do better pain management. Pain management is an idea I also steal from Manson. But I also think that consumerist urges can be thought of in the terms of Nir Eyal’s chart of distractions. Window shopping, and buying useless things, and feeling the tight pleasures of something coming in the mail for you are distractions from my life and means to distract myself from the pain and yearning that I, and most people, feel. They’re an addiction, in a way. I hope that by reducing these actions I can explore better ways to listen to my own needs.
I hope to have reduced consumption because reduced consumption has positive benefits for the world. I don’t want to be a consumer because it is not a joyous way for me to live my life. But, I also want to simply have less of a carbon footprint, to do a little less damage in this world.
I believe it is as simple as that. I want to reduce one particularly pernicious habit I have. Nothing more. Nothing new.