I've been seeing a few messages from people sharing their struggle with wanting new things and having difficulties to being content with what they have, so I thought I should share my experience on the matter.
Since I started practicing minimalism and simplicity, I've had ups and downs and, at first, I did not immediately identified what caused them. There was one turning point when I finally understood how it worked.
As I also practice zero waste, I tried to change how I do my shopping in order to avoid packages and anything that will increase my garbage size. For me that meant going to a smaller zero waste shop and a small farm's market. There was much less product choice, but I enjoyed the quality and the time saved. Simplicity was natural for me at this point and I did not bought much things, it felt like I didn't need anything more. I felt content and satisfied with my possessions.
Then we bought a house that needed massive renovations and we had no more time nor energy for cooking for a few months. I started buying packaged meals for convenience, so I went to the big supermarket again. And there was sales going, so I started browsing. Two weeks later, I found myself on the verge of buying a magnificent blanket that was so beautiful.
That's when I woke up. Suddenly I realised that I would have not even considered buying it just a few weeks before. I even remembered complaining to my partner saying "why do we have so many blankets? We don't need so many blankets! We should give some away!"
Browsing. It seems harmless. Sometimes we find great things for cheap so we keep doing it. We fear of missing a great sale, so we look, we spend time. And we buy, we spend money. And if we don't, we spend energy fighting the urge and rationalising.
I didn't buy the blanket and I never missed on it. I limited browsing in shops and on the web to it's barely minimal. The urge to have new things just faded away, and I was back to content. More time, money and energy for things that really matter to me. Isn't that what we all want?
Submitted September 16, 2020 at 12:30AM by sorciereaufoyer https://ift.tt/3iFfZAI
