The Art of Wanting Less

We can take some practical steps to reap benefits from life more than money can buy. As Socrates says, "The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less."

Note: This article is adapted from blogger Tatiana Denning, in which she talks to us about contentment and trying to control our desires.

I've always loved shopping; I could spend a whole day commuting from store to store without stopping. Some of my earliest memories are of happily spending a day with my grandmother Wittebort in downtown Morgantown, West Virginia.

It has deep roots.

Stores I frequented included Macy's, Dillards, Pottery Barn, Banana Republic, and J. Crew. I shopped so much at an anthropology store that the saleswomen would welcome me and know my name, prompting my husband to boo me every time he accompanied me shopping.

When my husband asked me where I was going on the morning of the weekend, I would usually say, “For a few things,” and that was kind of true; I didn't usually mean to make shopping a big part of my day, but a lot of times, it didn't work that way.

In my quest for the latest fashions or home decorations, I sometimes spent more money than my budget allowed and, indeed spent more time than my schedule allowed; as a result, I often had to find time to return things that were not appropriate or that I regretted buying, as it seems that the happiness comes from buying more things is always short-lived, and sometimes followed by regret.

However, I thought that once I got that new shirt that I “had to get” from Anthropologie, it would satisfy my desire, and I wouldn't want to buy anything else for a while. Still, it seemed like it would never happen; the more I bought, the more I wanted.

Some things are necessary:

The economy is built on buying, acquiring, and selling things; nothing is wrong with that. With excessive confidence, our free-market economy, with the vision and values that have arisen from it, has produced great nations that allow each of us to pursue our fullest potential.

We need to buy certain things to live our lives, such as shelter, clothes, and food, to name a few. But, as my son learned in elementary school, we have needs and desires, and we seem to confuse these two concepts.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that everyone should stay with fundamental needs and no longer have any desires; I mean that when we lose balance and focus more on wanting more, that can be a problem.

The risk of ever wanting more:

“We’re unhappiest when we become dissatisfied with what we have and decide that we want more,” psychologist Steve Taylor, who holds a doctorate, said in Psychology Today.

According to Taylor, we make ourselves unhappy when we feel we should buy more, earn more, own a better car or a bigger house, or decide that our job or partner isn't good enough. Wanting more leads to dissatisfaction with our lives and often to frustration when we can't satisfy our desires.

The desire for more can make us feel jealous, resentful, angry, depressed, and anxious. It can lead us to believe that life is unfair and lead us to greed, the desire to outdo others, and immoral actions. When we want more, we violate our sense of right and wrong to get what we want. This desire can also lead to hurting others, fighting for things that are not ours, and acting impulsively. It can also fuel a solid attachment to possessions. This kind of thinking fuels the culture of entitlement that prevails today.

Eliminating lust or desire is one of the main goals of reaching a purely spiritual state because this desire is the root of all human suffering.

However, we always want more. One survey found that middle-income women spend nearly 400 hours a year shopping to satisfy this desire, equivalent to about eight and a half years of their lives. However, most of us wear 20% of our clothes; we repeat wearing them 80% of the time.

Gaining more things takes time and effort, ruins our homes and minds, and can even complicate our relationships.

So, what makes us want more?

A look at psychology:

Think about that new T-shirt or cell phone. It's exciting at first when you buy it, and if you're like most of us, that suspense will be over long before it's over.

Psychologists call this condition “habituation,” which is the new thing we want loses its luster when we are used to having it, and then we enter into the state of wanting the next new thing; That is, in a vicious circle that never ends.

The fulfillment of our desires leads to more desires. We may think one day we can reach a state of satisfaction, but this rarely happens because true satisfaction only arises from desire.

Our consumer culture dictates that we not only want more but that we need more. The advertising world is specialized in helping to create this culture. Science Daily indicates that nostalgia is used to achieve this nowadays. Nostalgia was seen as a disease from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. Still, it is now used as a powerful psychological tool, giving us another reason to want or stick to things. Retailers and advertising companies use these tricks and other intelligent tricks, such as creating a sense of necessity or scarcity or offering an “irresistible” deal to force us to buy more, and they exploit our psychological problems.

Author James Clear, the founder of (The Habits Academy), wrote about one of these pitfalls, It’s a phenomenon known as the Diderot Effect.

Denis Diderot was a struggling French philosopher in the eighteenth century. When Russian Empress Catherine the Great helped him in his dire financial situation, he used some of his new wealth to buy a beautiful scarlet robe, but his happiness did not last long. When looking at his other things, they were now pale compared to the beauty of the new robe and soon became dissatisfied with what he had. He felt the need to buy more beautiful things and found he could no longer satisfy his desire.

Clear says, “The Diderot effect states that acquiring new possessions often leads to a spiral of consumption that leads you to acquire more new things, and as a result, we end up buying things that our former selves didn't need at all, to feel happy or satisfied.”

We buy collectibles for many reasons, where shopping therapy is defined as the belief that buying will provide us happiness or safety, as an emotional coping mechanism or a means of avoidance, or because acquiring things often gives an almost drug-like effect. In contrast, some people buy more than others because they compete and care about status, reputation, and appearance.

During my medical training, an attending physician about to retire stated how he wished he had kept the house he and his wife had bought. He said it was a lovely house, and they would have finished paying his installments by now, but instead, seeing their friends “moving” to bigger and better homes over the years, they felt the need to do the same, and now, he would retire with a significant mortgage burden.

As Diderot said, “Let my example teach you a lesson. Poverty has its freedoms; opulence has its obstacles.”

Impact on health:

The desire for less brings a sense of satisfaction and conviction in what we have, calls for respect for the present, and is an essential component of happiness. Conversely, the desire for more can bring a sense of discontent, a condition that can ultimately lead to ill health.

One study on teenagers showed that those who focused on materialism, putting a high value on owning things, experienced envy, depression, anxiety, lower grades, and general satisfaction with life. At the same time, those who focused on gratitude experienced the opposite, where they got positive results.

Numerous studies have shown that people's well-being and health improve when they are less concerned with material goals and values. However, material goals are associated with a decrease in well-being over time.

Psychologist Tim Kasser writes in his book The High Price of Materialism: “People whose values are centered on the accumulation of wealth or material possessions face a greater risk of unhappiness, including anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and problems with intimacy, regardless of age, income, or culture.”

Anxiety and depression lead to deteriorating mental health, which can undermine physical health and manifest as symptoms such as high blood pressure, heart disease, and increased pain levels. When we gain more purpose and live an easier life, our health may deteriorate in other ways, such as weight gain, loss of activity, and fitness.

Application:

It's said that the things you own will eventually own you, so just look at how much time you spend working to make money buying things, not to mention how much time you spend researching, thinking, shopping, arranging, cleaning, maintaining, repairing, or replacing things. We have become servants of our property in many ways.

So, how do we learn to want and buy less?  James Clear has listed some simple things we can do to curtail the habits of desire and accumulation.

Start with the temptation to unsubscribe from ads, avoid window shopping and browse the web for things that might tempt you, and then make sure that what you buy is commensurate with what you already have. If you only have black pants and then buy a pair of brown shoes, you'll suddenly find that you need some brown pants. That's why you don't make excuses to buy more.

Show off what you already have. Do you need another white shirt? Will the new pillow make your life better? If not, don't buy it, if yes, wait at least 24 hours, then ask yourself again, and most of the time, you will find that your desire for that thing has faded, and the answer now is no.

A shopping break is a great idea, and I don't mean taking time off. By living without buying things for a week or a month, you can eliminate your spending habit, and you may discover that you enjoy doing other things within your time.

Learn to give more value to experiences rather than purposes, invest time and energy in doing things for others, and then remind yourself of what matters to you - friends, family, and even a little quiet time for self-reflection and development.

Then, give up an item for each new item you buy -it avoids clutter, makes you evaluate what you already have, and is an excellent time to start being grateful for what you have.

Other tips include avoiding status traps and comparisons, separating your identity from the things you own, and letting go of emotional attachment to things.

It's also important to set limits for yourself. While today's self-control is undervalued, it's a long way down the road to wanting and owning less.

Remember that there will always be something new and better to want, but stacking up more won't make us happier. It will only spark our underlying problem.

As Socrates said, the solution lies not only in seeking less but in enjoying less, and this requires not only a change from the outside but, more importantly, a change from the inside.

Because you have fewer purposes, you may realize that you don't need much to be happy. You may even feel a sense of peace and freedom, which comes from getting rid of the burden of wanting more.