Aren’t we all addicted? Until a few years ago the term “Addiction” was only used in relation to alcohol, drugs or smoking. Now, the horizons of addiction have expanded making most of the global population addicted. ADDICTED TO STUFF. Amazon is soon coming up with electronic delivery, which will ensure that anything you need will be at your doorstep within 30 mins. Any Consumer facing brand knows the exact trick to make its customer buy things they don’t really need. For eg: if you search for a bag online and you do not buy it, you will be constantly reminded of the bag through advertisements on all social media sites, that you are going to be compelled to go back and buy it. Marketers are manipulating our minds and are actually making a choice for us and we are just following their choices. These marketing gimmicks are practically hypnotizing us and making us buy what we do not even need. They are creating a perceived need. Intelligent and Predictive advertisements on the internet, probably seem to know us better than we know ourselves. Deficit Advertisement is a trick which is used to make us feel inadequate. Relentless messages and reminders on the internet telling you that you are not enough. Your hair has a problem, your skin has a problem, your body has a problem, everything about you is a problem and the only way to resolve this problem is to keep buying more.
The love for materialistic goods, have actually replaced the things which were the original sources of happiness and contentment. We don’t realize but too much stuff actually does not satisfy you, but creates an unwarranted pressure to keep buying more. In order to buy more, you work more. You keep working more and you stress yourself even more. Stress at the end of the day is the root cause of all lifestyle disorders today. It only leads to anxiety, discontent and a huge void in your life. If you try to slowly release the goods you have collected over the years, you will actually have a sense of freedom. We do not realize the extent of consumption humans have globally. Consuming more than the planet can replenish, is one of the major root causes of environmental degradation.
Minimalism is a concept which has been practiced in Japan for a very long time. It is often confused with compromising on your needs. It is actually about knowing your needs and only buying things you really really need. It is about being deliberate with your resources. It is about questioning ourselves, what is really essential? What is going to really add value to my life? Success today to most of us, only means accumulation of stuff. Minimalism is a concept where you identify your true “needs” and put a full stop on buying goods you do not really need, with money you actually do not have, to impress the people you don’t even like.
We have become so detached with the world, that we have practically lost the purpose. We have distanced ourselves from the community, which in reality makes us safe and secure. Compulsive shopping disorder is actually a modern challenge. In the pursuit for happiness, we always want to earn more and then eventually spend more. We work for crazy hours, do not find the need to take vacations, commune much longer and then spend more and more time alone in front of screens.
If you keep buying more and more stuff you don’t need, it actually depresses you. Because more of what you don’t need, is actually less . More is often less. We are unmindfully hoarding on things we don’t need and we are dying of hunger for the things that really matter. We think we are holding on to stuff as it has a memory attached to it. Every stuff we have, has a memory. I have seen parents collecting their kids’ clothes and books and toys for years. They dump it in some corner of the house, but don’t dispose it,as it has a memory component to it. What is the point of hoarding on to crazy stuff as a memory if you are not going to ever even look at it once in your lifetime. Minimalism is about realizing that Memories are not in our things, they are inside us.
As companies are innovating our potential to restrain our urge to keep buying is getting tougher by the day. Normalizing credit card debt is another problem the modern world is dealing with. “I want it and I want it now” is the mentality most of us have. The ase of buying things whenever you want and not having the need to wait for it, is creating a bigger challenge.
Placing unnecessary burden on ourselves in order to maintain a certain image is forcing us to keep buying more and more. Until the advent of social media, we only compared ourselves to people immediately around us, who had more or less similar socio-economic backgrounds. But now with vertical expansion of the reference group, one has the desire to look like or own stuff similar to a Hollywood celebrity. Constant comparison is the root cause of our anxiety.
Minimalism is a process of decluttering. The more you take an action, the more action you want to take. Every possession you own has a purpose. Every possession adds real value to your life.
We need to build an identity of our own beyond the brands we use. For our own good we will have to either change by design or by disaster.
