It’s almost the end of the week and I am looking to sleep in on Monday and then head down to the local dutch bakery for some egg bene and a cappuccino for brunch. I’ve been sticking to the meal routine, no snacks or eating in between meals, I’m hoping that that if I do it for a few months that eventually it becomes like muscle memory where I go through the day without having to consciously think about it. I went for a walk tonight of 11.6km and when I got home I felt good, being able to consolidate my thoughts for the day along with planing the coming week. This week I’m going to get some more of the ‘John West Salmon Bowl Soy Veges & Black Rice’ which is nice to have in the morning then followed by the chia seeds and unsweetened natural yoghurt then for dinner I’ll have a soup along with chia seeds and unsweetened natural yoghurt. They keep my pretty full and then for morning and afternoon tea I’ll have a cup of tea or flavoured cup of coffee.
Buying things over and above what you need isn’t going to make you happy – there is a law diminishing returns that once you have all your needs taken care of and you have a few nice things to make life move from surviving to being comfortable. It is difficult though to get off the consumerism treadmill once you’re on there – the market, the social pressure, the feeling that you’re being left behind, that you’re not sharing the same experiences that your friends are. The whole issue with marketing in many cases isn’t just about telling you the product exists but making promises that a need you didn’t know existed needs to be addressed or promises of addressing some abstract notion of ‘peace of mind’ through the purchase of a given good or service.
I have to admit that getting off the treadmill can be hard given that I’ve been working on that myself where I like the novelty of having something new to to play with but I’m training myself to stand back, take a deep breath and ask myself “do I really need that or is it something I’m going to later regret once I get it?”. I’m getting myself in a habit of now avoiding doom scrolling, well, I guess it is more ‘window shopping’ online because I find that it ends up being an example of induce demand for things I wouldn’t have otherwise been interested in. The other thing is to ‘sleep on it’ and the next day after having a good night sleep I realise that I may still want it but it isn’t urgent so I’ll wait until I find I actually need it.
A good example is that I am looking at getting a desktop computer but I’m holding off because mainly I am waiting to see the M5 refresh Apple will carry out for their Mac range but also the fact that my laptop pretty does everything I want at the moment. When it comes to the desktop there is also looking at getting a new more comfortable chair and maybe a new desk as well so when I do that it’ll be probably next year. I guess this is where procrastination comes in handy, I end up procrastinating my way to not spending money on something.
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