Part 2: Consuming Less
I’ve been thinking a lot about my personal consumption ever since I broke up with Amazon and realized we were buying a lot of stuff we didn’t need. To the annoyance of my kids and the reluctant support of my husband, we’ve limited our Amazon purchases to the things we really can’t find elsewhere and/or for anything near a reasonable price. This does mean that I go to actual physical stores more, but it also got me out of the habit of solving a problem instantaneously with Add to Cart. Amazon’s goal is a frictionless purchase, and they are excellent at it. As it turns out, creating your own friction means you don’t buy nearly as much. I don’t miss the boxes on my porch, I don’t miss the packaging, and I don’t miss the stuff.
However, less consumption doesn’t just mean consuming less stuff, although that is important. But it means being mindful and intentional with your resources, namely money, time, and energy.
Challenge #2: Consume Less
Choose one of the following:
- Money: Don’t buy any ‘extra stuff’ for a week. Food and household necessities are fine, but no extras.
- Time: Delete one app from your phone that you are spending way too much time on.
- Energy: Delete one app from your phone that has a negative impact on your energy.
Experiments with Less
I’ve been reading The Year of Less by Cait Flanders. It’s inspiring to meet this woman after she has tackled sobriety and weight loss and, at the time of writing the book, overspending. You realize very quickly that there are many places where we can overconsume and that the underlying reasons are all related. While overconsumption might feel satisfying in the moment, the outcomes are often painful and unfulfilling.
In my own experiments, mindfulness around the consumption of social media and news has given me the most relief and happiness. Around the time I broke up with Amazon, I removed Instagram from my phone. I also restructured my relationship with news, limiting my consumption and changing what I was tuning into and when.
It took some time to not feel like I was missing out, but what I’ve realized is that the quality of what I’m consuming has vastly improved. I’m not losing my time to mindless scrolling (and believe it or not, I missed that for a while). I’m also less gripped by headlines, and as a result, the way I feel in my mind and body is more settled and less vigilant. Essentially, less consumption has translated to more peace of mind.
I encourage you to accept this week’s challenge and create mindfulness around your own consumption. Less stuff, less wasted time, less energy on things that don’t make you feel good.
