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“We spend so much time on the hunt, but nothing ever quite does it for us, and we get so wrapped up in the hunt that it kind of makes us miserable.” (Harris, Dan. 10% Happier) The tendency to consider material possessions and physical comfort as more important than spiritual and intellectual concepts is known as Materialism. Materialism can refer either to the simple preoccupation with the material world, or to the theory that physical matter is all there is. Materialism as a philosophy is held by those who maintain that existence is explainable solely in material terms, with no accounting of spirit or consciousness.
Individuals who believe this see the universe as a huge device held together by pieces of matter functioning in subjection to realistic laws. A simple example of materialism is the Black Friday sale, where people wait for hours on end, que up the night before to buy things that they must already at cheaper prices. They do this to hoard, because they feel it will make them happy.
In a world where we have everything, we are constantly wanting more. Why do we need all this more? Most of the time material possessions do not bring us true happiness, it brings us temporary happiness. We are happy for a moment, until we want something else. The world we live in has rewired us to be a consumer. Where we consume everything just to fill a want, not a need. “There is nothing wrong with consumption, the problem is compulsory consumption.” (Millburn, Joshua Fields. The Minimalists. 00:01:18-00:01:23)
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All around us, there are messages telling us to buy. On the Internet we see continuous advertising trying to get us to purchase a product or service. It’s the reason movies are continually made with products placed throughout. Turn on the radio or open a newspaper or magazine, and you are attacked by more advertising. Visit a shopping mall, and the urge to buy comes from every direction. The author Leo Babauta said that this message to continuously buy and it will somehow make us happier is drilled into our heads from the days of Happy Meals and cartoons until the day we die. It’s inescapable. (Babauta, Leo.) Patrick Rhone the author of the book Enough believes that “This is not something that just happened yesterday, this is something that has been sold to us over the past hundred years by those that want to make a whole lot of money.” (Rhone, Patrick. Enough)
People think that they will be happy if they have a big house, nice cars, and lots of money, but actually this does not lead to happiness. Owning items becomes important when you have an internal void. When your internal world is robbed it is only natural to want to fill it with external things. As Scott H. Young says, unfortunately, this is like filling a sieve with sand. The sand may fit in the sieve temporarily, but it will soon sift through the holes, leaving you empty again. Everyone knows the old term, money cannot buy happiness, but this phrase is freakishly true. Often times the more people have, the sadder they are. We rely on material possession to make us happy.
People are no longer looked at by what they do, but by what they own. Television advertisements show that we need the new clothes or were not caught up in the latest fashion. They show that we need the newest model of a car (that we may already have), the newest phone, the newest toys, or the newest holiday destination we have to visit to be happy. We look up to people like the Kardashians or any celebrity for that matter, who have luxurious lifestyles and we think that everyone lives that way, so we must live that way too.
The American dream is defined as making a six-figure salary, giving family members more than what is required and necessary to survive, coupled with the feeling of affording what you want, when you want it. This in fact, is a common dream most humans work towards in search of ultimate happiness, whereas notwithstanding the above-mentioned perception, people should be working in protecting spiritual, intellectual and moral values in search of ultimate happiness.
According to the Huffington Post “Americans own twice as many cars and eat out twice as often as they did in 1958. In the 1950’s, homes averaged around 1,000 square feet. Today, the average home is 2,400 square feet. Meanwhile, according to the Statistics Portal, our family size has decreased from 4 in the 1950-60s, to 2.5-3 as of 2015. Things have changed, both in our individual societies and in America as a whole.” (Unknown. The Huffington Post) The Americans have 3 times more space than they did 50 years ago to fit all their stuff, “yet they create a 22 billion dollar, 2.2 billion square ft industry, that of personal space.” (Hill, Graham. Ted Talk, 2011).
Over the years, people have started realizing that they are being tricked. Jessie Jacobs, an entrepreneur says that “There is no out, until you become aware. You are not going to get happier by consuming more.” (Jacobs, Jessie.) The key to moving away from Materialism is Minimalism. The theory of Minimalism is slowly gaining ground as a practice in attaining greater happiness. It is the promotion of things that one values the most and the removal of everything else that distracts us from the basic needs. It is a life that forces intentionality. Minimalism is important because it reminds us that possessions are easy to replace, while our friends and loved ones are not.
As the gradual removal of clutter of materialistic things takes place, the mind gets freer to focus on more important issues affecting life with regard to the spirit, relationship and intellect. When a person is called a minimalist, you are describing them as simple. A minimalist prefers the minimal amount or degree of something. Minimalism is a tool than can assist you in finding freedom from the trapping of the consumer culture we’ve built our lives around. Real freedom.
There are many other aspects that are also important to consider while escaping materialism. Firstly, we are not the things we own. We view our things as possessions and we feel like they define us. This is not true. Ownership is just a societal construct to keep order, it doesn’t have any deeper meaning. Separate your identity from the things you own. Secondly, we should create goals for ourselves, which we should strive to achieve, this will make us feel content. Right now, materialism is filling that void. Even though many of our goals may be to achieve materialistic things, the processing of doing so is what will make us happy, not the material object.
Another way of moving away from materialism is investing your energy to help other people, not to be sucked in by consumerism. For example, cut down on television, do not waste time browsing a mall or an online website. Throw away and de clutter your life. Do major cleaning once in a while, do not be a packrat. Buy only what you need, not everything you come across that might be of use in some point in your life. Have intangible habits, time management, emotional control and discipline. Building intangible assets replaces your need for physical ones. The larger your income does not have to mean a more glamourous life, save it for your goals and dreams. It is very important to simplify all your material possessions, so they do not consume all your mental resources which in turn makes you freer and happier. Your status in society should not be because of your wealth and possessions but rather because of accomplishments.
Lastly and most importantly, material possessions are not something one should be attached to. Buddhism teaches that attachment to things creates suffering. Do not hold on to things because they once made you happy. On your death bed, what are the things that will matter to you? Think about those things and use it to prioritize your life. This will help you overcome materialism and will make you a minimalist.
Materialism is not just affecting human beings, it is also affecting our environment and is causing large amounts of damage to it. Charlotte McDonald a BBC reporter suggests that if everyone on earth consumes as much as an average American, we would need four Earths. (McDonald, Charlotte.) This is because the average American, says GFN, uses seven global hectares, compared to a global average of 2.7, according to the most recent GFN figures (based on data from 2011). The more we consume, the more material possessions we hoard. The more we are affecting the Earth. We are already more carbon dioxide than this planet can handle.
Materialism is not equal to happiness.
Once people start to realize and accept that, the will happier and have more freedom. This freedom enables us, with the extra time it affords to concentrate in resolving issues connected with our health, our passion, our relationships, our personal growth and a desire to contribute beyond ourselves. This does not mean there is inherently wrong in owning material possessions. That is part of collective happiness. A happy blend of the two approaches allows people the freedom to peruse purpose driven lives.
Citations
- Harris, Dan. 10% Happier, 11 March 2014.
- “Materialism.” Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism.
- “Zen Habits: Breathe.” Zen Habits RSS, zenhabits.net/a-guide-to-escaping-materialism-and-finding-happiness/.
- “14 Tips for a Less Materialistic Lifestyle.” Scott H Young, 4 Apr. 2018, www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2007/08/15/14-tips-for-a-less-materialistic-livestyle/.
- “Materialism.” AllAboutPhilosophy.org, www.allaboutphilosophy.org/materialism.htm.
- McDonald, Charlotte. “How Many Earths Do We Need?” BBC News, BBC, 16 June 2015, www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33133712.
- Davis, Jeff. “How Materialism Hurts Us and Our Environment.” Soapboxie, Soapboxie, 24 May 2016, soapboxie.com/social-issues/Material-Wants-VS-Needs.
- Joshua, and Ryan Nicodemus. “Now Available – Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things.” The Minimalists, The Minimalists, 30 Sept. 2016, www.theminimalists.com/film/.
References
- The Negative Effects of Materialism – PsychCentral
- Materialistic Values and Subjective Well-Being: A Cross-Cultural Study in Eight Societies – Frontiers in Psychology
- Materialistic People Have More Friends – But They’re Not Well-Liked by Them – The Conversation
- The Neural Basis of Materialistic and Environmental Values: Evidence from Functional MRI – National Center for Biotechnology Information
- Giving Love, Getting Love, and the Impact of Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Goal Pursuit on Relationship Quality – American Psychological Association
