200 days without new things - why such an experience is useful

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

A few months ago, I went through the worst experience of my life: my father passed away. He had cancer.

But in our society it is not customary to mourn the loss of a loved one for too long: you need to work. And you also need to collect a pile of papers and notify a thousand different authorities about what happened. When I was done with all this, I decided to remove the things that no one needed anymore from my father's apartment.

This is a very thankless job.

Sorting out the rubble, I felt like I was literally suffocating. Almost every thing was associated with a specific memory.

I had a lot of work to do.

It took weeks to get rid of all the junk that had accumulated in my single father's den. Something had to be sold, something had been gifted, and something had to be simply thrown away. Boxes and boxes with dishes, clothes, furniture, office supplies and a ton of everything …

In fact, I threw away all of his savings over these decades.

To buy these things, my father once spent a lot of time, money and effort. And now it was even more difficult for me to give them away for recycling. We are destroying the planet, we are ready to leave nothing for future generations - and everything in order to buy things, most of which we will rarely use, if not never at all. We will forget about some of them almost on the same day we buy them.

This story sobered me.

I started an experiment, I wanted to try not to buy a single new thing for 200 days in a row.

Like many of those with a stable income, I have never been an overly disciplined consumer. Like everyone else, I bought things that I can't afford. And I often thought: "Why not?" So I wondered if I could do without shopping malls all this time.

I managed. Apart from food, medicine, and basic toiletries, I didn’t buy anything in stores. Everything I needed, I either borrowed or bought through a used classifieds site.

It was an amazing experience. And so 7 lessons I learned from this experiment.

1. There are already too many things in the world

While I was selling my father's property, I visited a lot of charity shops and sites with ads. Even on Facebook, a bunch of people are selling each other millions of things.

To be honest, I am shocked by the amount of things we produce. Mountains of clothes, tons of furniture, dishes, pots, walking sticks - an ocean of things that is impossible even to imagine. A huge part of it all ends up in a landfill. We hardly need more things.

2. We are addicted to shopping. It needs to be treated

When I tried to fill all my need for shopping with second-hand items, when I started going to thrift stores, I was shocked at how much unnecessary things surround us.

These stores are full of things in packages that no one has ever opened. I even met new scented candles in packages!

In general, the act of buying itself is more likely the result of manipulating us, rather than a conscious choice.

3. People have been taught to think that "used" is unhygienic

When I described my experience on the blog, many wrote to me in the comments that buying used is unhygienic. They say that buying clothes, furniture and other goods is low, and things are "contaminated with foreign microbes." This is strange!

People who donate their things to humanitarian aid do it with a smile on their face! Why, then, should we think that this is only for the poor and not for us?

4. Large hypermarkets are needed not by you, but by corporations

During these 200 days, I realized that I absolutely do not need hypermarkets. All the necessary products can be bought near the house, within one or two blocks. Shopping in such stores is even more pleasant: they are always cleaner, they treat products and customers more carefully.

When you go to a hypermarket, you invariably buy a bunch of unnecessary things that weren't on your shopping list. Everything has been done for this. You want to go to a big store to “stock up” and save money, and as a result, you still spend a lot more than you would have spent if you stayed at home.

5. Nothing is new and nothing is expensive

My bank account has certainly fizzled out over these six months. I do not use credit cards, there is no financial pressure on me. I live easily (in a moral sense, I did not quit working) and finally realize: it is much better to live without constant shopping than with it and, in addition, with the eternal fear of being left without money.

Things just aren't worth it.

6. It's awesome: pay a specific person, not a corporation

When you buy something through an ad, you find that most of the sellers are honest and decent people who want to sell you something useful. They are normal, ready to give you something completely new at the purchase price, with a small discount. They bought extra, they don't need it, and they are happy to get their money back. Your deal will make them much more happy than a cashier in a home appliance hypermarket. And even more than a sales person who wanted to blow you a TV that you couldn't afford.

And it's just nice: to know that your money goes into the pocket of this normal person, and not into the mouth of a faceless corporation.

7. I really don't need all this "goodness" anymore

Yes, there are things that you cannot buy "second-hand". Many things. Usually all of these items are related to hygiene. When I have to buy them, I literally force myself to do it.

But most of the time everything is the same for me. I just live, go to work, drink with friends, take a taxi. And the salary is higher than my expenses, not equal to them. My stress is almost gone, serenity and inner harmony are returning. Now I understand that the significance of the vast majority of things is overestimated.

I believe that minimalism is the best way to live. To realize this, I had to lose my father. But I hope you don’t have to go through hell to grasp this truth.

I hope this post gets you at least thinking about how you usually behave in large stores. Is it worth counting all these discounts and paying attention to all the promotions? Maybe this is just a hoax?

Translation: Konstantin Shiyan