Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter
A Year Without Buying
I recently read an amazing book by Judith Levine called Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping. Levine and her partner decided to see if they could manage a year without buying anything. They set up rules regarding food purchases (nothing pre-made, only ingredients, no restaurants, no coffee-to-go and so forth). While going a year without purchasing anything may seem a little extreme, one of the great benefits of Levine’s experiment is the consciousness it gave her about our consumer culture, how oblivious we are as we buy and buy and buy.
Often, when I’m with a client, we come across shopping bags of items purchased but never used. Tucked away for months, or even years, they are a vivid reminder of how detached from need, or even true desire, our buying is. After all, if it were something we truly desired, we would have remembered to take it out of the shopping bag– right?
This book is funny (an argument about the necessity of wine is won by a quote from Thomas Jefferson, but not before they learn to brew beer) and Levine is honest about the ways they would “cheat” by letting friends buy forbidden items. Levine’s point is not that we should all stop shopping, but that by being more conscious consumers, we will not only use our money more wisely, we will also enhance our enjoyment of life.
Try this: Okay, so we don’t want to go a year without shopping. But can we go a day? Choose a day in the next month and see if you can keep your cash and credit cards in your wallet. At the end of the day review the experience. Is there anything you saved yourself from buying that would have been a mistake? Did you feel deprived? Did you cheat? Understanding our relationship to buying can help us to be more conscious consumers–which can only be good.
To the Parents
Recently I read a New York Times article in which a college student explained that the reason he did so poorly freshman year was that he was overwhelmed by learning to take care of himself: doing his laundry, eating and waking up in time for class. I think it is easy in these highly competitive times to focus on making sure our kids are taking chess and doing well on their SATs. However, if we aren’t teaching them to make their beds and to file their papers, it seems to me that we are failing to teach them other important life skills.