Last update: February 19, 2017
The problem with consumerism is that it contains a false promise: if you buy the objects you want, you feel happy. This promise is nourished by an idea promoted since the Second World War, now rooted in our society, namely that happiness is closely linked to the ability to consume, that is, with the money we have available to buy.
In this order of ideas, happiness is the result of the purchase. If you have a newer TV, you are happier. If you wear expensive clothes, you feel more powerful. If you buy the latest model of car, you feel more respectable. The worst thing is that all this coincides with the truth, at least in appearance. Not because it is true, but because these ideas are validated to the point of becoming truth.
In other words, if you believe that a dress gives you more dignity, you will feel less worthy if you wear simple clothes. If you feel that a new TV increases your chances of reinventing yourself, you will suffer until you have it at home, and so on.
However, you realize that this thinking is false when a month has passed since the purchase of what you thought was essential and you are bored, unhappy or unworthy. Then the cycle begins again.
The truth is that consumer goods free us from a big problem: giving meaning to our life. They help us look elsewhere, instead of exploring our inner self. It is easier to think about how to buy a watch than to determine if our actions have value and meaning in the world.
Purchases and exclusion
Indeed, today's society treats people who wear designer clothes or drive a luxury car differently. Usually, without even having heard of this person and without knowing what they are like, they are treated with some consideration or at least with more respect.. Many think that you have to curry favor with those who have money, as if money were a guarantee of respect and respectability.
The same is true in the opposite case. Those who appear simple are more easily ignored. He could even be excluded from certain places or be the subject of heavy jokes or whispered comments. Everyone would like to be treated with some consideration, so it is easy to think that it is enough, and at the same time essential, to shop and change your way of dressing.
The deception hidden by this mechanism is that it is really despicable. If you take off your expensive clothes, you will be humiliated again. If you put them back on, you will regain your dignity. Respect for oneself becomes a mask and depends entirely on others. When you agree to play on these terms, you agree to enter into a logic of self-contempt. Admit that you don't value yourself. And this is the most dangerous aspect.
Happiness and hugs
One of the most troubling aspects of compulsive shopping is that they follow the basic pattern of any addiction. Perhaps they also give a well-being similar to what an addict feels when he uses the substance he is addicted to. A level of well-being that decreases more and more and that requires more and more purchases and expenses to increase.
Constant shopping is a characteristic of people who feel unhappy and who experience an inner emptiness without finding relief. Shopping is like a temporary antidote to that lack of meaning and meaning.
In any case, happiness is not that. Several studies show that situations that bring true happiness have to do more with experiences and less with objects. An experience moves our inner world and makes us feel alive. Material things, on the other hand, despite being an experience, give a superficial and passing enthusiasm.
We never remember the moment when we bought something, instead in our mind and in our heart the memory of a kiss of love, of a funny situation, of the day in which we were complimented for our work will always remain imprinted.
What brings the most happiness is to feel intimately connected to the world and to other people. This is possible when you join the community, actively participating in the life of a couple, sharing time with friends, showing interest in the world in which you live. In other words, you are happy when you embrace the world and life.
