The real problem with shopping.
Minute for your health #44
The mere act of shopping is thinking about what is missing in your life.
-Ann Patchett
I’ve been reading a collection of essays by Ann Patchett and in one of them she writes about her year of not shopping.
What stuck with me was her meditation on the fact that by shopping or thinking about shopping - we are focusing on what is missing.
Shopping makes us feel a lack:
When we go shopping or think about buying something we are thinking about what is lacking from our lives.
What could I add to my life to make it better? What is missing that means my life is not quite good enough yet?
If you follow me online you may know that we recently bought a house. With that came a significant amount of Pinterest and Instagram browsing for design and renovation ideas.
What started off as a creative outlet and fun project quickly turned into constantly swirling thoughts about what we don’t have and what is missing from our current home. I found myself constantly online shopping and thinking about what we ‘need’.
This turned into a huge lack of gratitude for what we have.
And so Ann’s essay spoke deeply into my current situation.
As a result I decided to give up shopping for lent.
Here is what I’ve learned so far:
I have a lot more time when I’m not online shopping.
I think about things I ‘need’ more times a day than I care to count.
I actually love what we have and am so grateful for our home.
When you work with what you have you sometimes find better solutions than if you just buy something new.
I quickly forget about things I see in the shops that I think I really have to have when I don’t buy them.
I would much rather support small, independent stores and services than the enormous online shopping industry.
Summary:
Shopping makes us focus on what is lacking and can get in the way of us appreciating what we have. In fact… shopping is the opposite of contentment.
Have you ever tried to give up shopping? Is it something you might try now?
One final thought - my biggest realisation has been how tempting online shopping is. We have everything at our fingertips. It’s so easy to fill hours of time by mindlessly browsing all the different options out there for … anything that pops into our mind. And by shopping online we abandon our city centres.
Which is a shame because whilst online shopping is a pretty empty activity, a Saturday stroll through a beautiful city centre full of independent stores and lovely coffee shops is pretty life giving.
So I’d like to challenge you to at least give up online shopping and to find out what your city centre and your local stores have to offer instead.
Know someone who loves their city centre? Share this article with them.
If you’re new here and you loved this email, then please subscribe by clicking the button below.
Links:
Ann Patchett’s collection of essays: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56922687-these-precious-days