Why is being happy more important than shopping?
We are being increasingly exhorted to stop buying stuff (and I am one of those who says this too.) My concern is that the standard solution is for us to leanr how to be happy with less.
Why is being happy with less better than shopping? Is it possible to replace the buzz of shopping, that joy of instant gratification, just with the higher moral ground and superior feeling of not having bought anything?
I don't think this is a good argument, it's not working on me and I'm in the thick of it. Just telling people this happiness line plain won't work. Here is sample from a randomly trawled site on anti-consumerism:
By learning to be happy with less, you just may find that so many possessions were merely complicating your life. You may find that few—but more special or unique—things trump multitudes of mediocre or common things. True, some material objects do make our lives easier, but they cannot bring us happiness, which must be found within.
For me, this holds no compelling reason to not go out shopping this weekend. Who says material objects don't make us happy? Do we even know what happy is? And what about all this happy-clappy happiness from within deal? What is that all about?
Sadly, a great opportunity is being watered down by people trotting out platitudes, one-liners and pithy sayings that they can't explain and I believe they don't fully understand. The funny thing is, I am a long term anti-consumer and I am sure that my inner happiness did not suddenly blossom over night.
There must be something to replace this buying of stuff, and it must be tangible. As with people who quit smoking, it helps them to have something else to do with their hands and mouth, so many take to chewing gum and knitting.
What can I tell people to do instead of shopping? Just urging them to seek inner happiness instead won't work. What is the anti-consumer equivalent of the gum and knitting?