Last month, Banksy’s ‘Show me the Monet’ painting, which litters Monet’s composition with discarded shopping trollies and a fluorescent orange traffic cone, sold at auction for £7.5 million. The message in his painting was clear: society is disregarding the environment in favour of the wasteful excesses of consumerism.
A recent report stated that over-consumption is driving the climate crisis. We know that, if everyone in the world lived like the average European, we’d already need three Earths to supply resources; if it were an average American we’d need five Earths!1
Tomorrow is Black Friday – a day of over-consumption that was only recently brought to the UK.2 Consuming so much really is bad for our mental health,3 and it’s trashing our planet.
So why do we think we’ll be happier when we shop? Why do we think ‘retail therapy’ can somehow fix a bad day? Because over many years we have learnt to associate purchasing things with satisfying deep emotional needs and desires – for love, acceptance, and status.
Research4,5 shows us that shopping leaves us more anxious,6 fosters loneliness7 saddled with debt, drowning in our possessions, and tied to jobs we don’t like. And what makes us happy is in fact non-materials things, such as relationships with family, friends and having more leisure time to do things we enjoy.
We are so caught up in consuming, it’s so intrinsic that we self-identify as a ‘consumer’. So when we are faced with really big challenges, like climate change, we think like a consumer to remedy the problem: “I’ll buy this instead of that”. But greensumption (switching to green products) isn’t the answer – we can’t buy ourselves out of the environmental mess we are in (even though buying Fairtrade makes a real difference to the lives of producers who sell them).
So, how can we crack our habit for consuming? How can we put it to the test tomorrow when persuasive advertising will sell us enticing solutions to problems we never knew we had?
- First, recognise the impulse to shop in yourself and ask: ‘why am I shopping again? Do I really need this?’. If you think you do, test yourself – leave the shop or online cart for a minimum of 48 hours and see if the urge passes (it mostly does).
- Be more mindful about what you are consuming. Make a list of all the things you regularly consume – that takeaway coffee, that extra lip balm. Put it on paper and think about what things you really need and what you want.
- Understand your weaknesses. Recognise your trigger points. Are there certain shops, certain special offers or certain moods that prompt your shopping?
- Remind yourself that humans have basic needs and for a week try to restrict new purchases to essentials only, such as food, health and hygiene products.
- Reframe your situation – you are not going without, you are living light and discovering alternatives. Learn to be happier with less.
- Hang out more with friends that enjoy the simple things of life. If you have friends who are not caught up in consumerism, it’s much easier to reduce your consumption (when not in lockdown)
- Seek out experiences instead of things. Research shows that experiences provide deep satisfaction, meaning and memories. So instead of clothes shopping, host a clothes sharing or swapping party with friends and trade styling tips. Buy shop vouchers with more meaning for Xmas, e.g. the bibliotherapy voucher from the School of Life.
- Set up a Facebook or a WhatsApp group with your neighbours so you can share bike and garden tools, etc
- Get in touch with our inner creative tinker-repair fairy and fix your clothes.
- Read and hear from people who have managed their consumerist ways – e.g. watch Michelle McGagh’s My No Spend Year at TEDx Manchester.
- Instead of shopping, donate your time (and money) by helping out at a charity (e.g. a local food bank when not in lockdown), and make the world a better place.
- Talk about over-consumption with your children (or nieces and nephews) to help them be mindful for their letters to Santa.
- If you have an impulse to buy something – make it a book, ideally second hand. Reading can make you happier, reduces stress,8 improves social skills and empathy,9 prevents cognitive decline,10 and much more.
It may feel like ‘just this one’ may not have such a big impact, but know that your individual actions to reduce consumption will have a direct impact on the planet; an impact you can be proud of.
“Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like”
Will Rogers
References
- Global Footprint Network. 2019. Public Data Package. Available at: https://www.overshootday.org/newsroom/country-overshoot-days/ (November 2020)
- Daly, H. 2020/ How did Black Friday get its name? The history behind the biggest sales event of the year. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/black-friday/0/black-friday-name-why-called-what-history-sales-2020-event/ (November 2020)
- Bauer M, Cuing Consumerism: Situational Materialism Undermines Personal and Social Well-Being. Psychol Sci. 2012. 1;23(5):517-23
- DeAngelis, T. 2004. Consumerism and its discontents. Available at: https://www.apa.org/monitor/jun04/discontents (November 2020)
- Monbiot, G. 2013. Materialism: a system that eats us from the inside out. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/09/materialism-system-eats-us-from-inside-out (November 2020)
- Kasser T. 2014. Changes in materialism, changes in psychological well-being: Evidence from three longitudinal studies and an intervention experiment. Motivation and Emotion. 38:1–22
- Pieters P. 2013. Bidirectional Dynamics of Materialism and Loneliness: Not Just a Vicious Cycle. Journal of Consumer Research. 2013.40,4: 615-631
- Chiles, A. 2009. Reading can help reduce stress, according to University of Sussex research. Available at: https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/4245076.reading-can-help-reduce-stress-according-to-university-of-sussex-research/ (November 2020)
- Kidd DC, Reading Literary Fiction Improves Theory of Mind. Science 18 Oct 2013:342, Issue 6156, pp. 377-380
- Wilson R. Life-span cognitive activity, neuropathologic burden, and cognitive aging. Neurology July 23, 2013; 81(4)