Happiness

Are you happy/happier/happiest when filling your shopping cart with items that show the world you are amazing? Does buying a new car, a new phone, clothing with a designer label make you happy? For how long?

When you work long hours and never power down your IT, are you fulfilled? Do you smile and laugh when you get home late and miss essential relationship milestones?

Are you dreaming about your life dreams, or are you living them?

I naively imagine most people living in similar circumstances in the western world appreciate and find joy in the same things I do. Accepting that thesis, I assert that we are happy/er/est when spending time with friends and family, sharing stories, laughter, and traditions. The mass-produced treasures we collect quickly fade and become part of our adaptation to the daily chase. Living life with others, learning to embrace time, and living with satisfaction fills up the needs and enriches us like material possessions can't.

Sounds good, right. Sounds true, sort of. But we are inundated by offers, intimidation, pressure, and marketing, which tells us that we are nothing if we don't have the iPhone23 and drive a new car. We need to know all the latest celebrities come influencers who are blatantly shilling for products and our desperately broken system. Our individual and collective despair and desperation resulting from racing after another icon, another shiny thing, the holy grail. These products and the quest cause the anguish, not quench it.

Unshackling from the endless, dissatisfying cycle isn't easy, but if you desire to breathe, smile, and laugh, you must start weaning yourself.

Fourteen years ago, Scott H Young offered these suggestions.

You aren't the things you own. The problem is that you view things as possessions in the first place. Ownership is just a societal construct to keep order; it doesn't have any deeper meaning. Separate your identity from the things you own.

Relationships are about doing, not having. You can't have a girlfriend, boyfriend, or spouse. Although those terms are fairly commonplace, they demonstrate that many people still view relationships as possessions. The more you see relationships as possessions, the less intrinsic value you can get from experiencing them.

Create a system of goals and challenges. Materialism fills a void. Replace that uncomfortable filler with goals and challenges.

Serve. Invest your energies into helping other people. I don't view acts as being on a continuum from selfishness to selflessness, as acts that directly benefit me can benefit others as well. But even in that case, shifting your focus onto the needs of others can replace materialism.

Trash it. I'm the opposite of a packrat. When I need to do a major cleaning, I usually toss just about everything I haven't used recently. Getting rid of old possessions can be a liberating experience, stripping away from you what isn't important.

See wealth as a challenge not a result. I view earning more money as an interesting and complex game. I expect my minimum comfort threshold would only be around $15,000 to $20,000 per year. Beyond that, earning more is simply a bigger challenge.

Experience over objects. The only reason to buy an object is because you believe it will (directly or indirectly) improve the quality of your experience. Going straight to the source helps you avoid the middlemen that are material goods.

Build intangible assets. Habits, time-management, discipline, emotional control, understanding and learning are just a few of the non-physical assets you can hold. Building intangible assets replaces your need for physical ones.

Use money to free, not chain, yourself. When you have a larger income, don't simply adapt by increasing your lifestyle. Instead work to create a buffer between your income and lifestyle so you live below your means. This will give you more freedom to pursue goals and ideas that may not immediately contribute to your productivity.

Go basic. Simplify all your material possessions so they don't consume your mental resources. Simple, even if less glamorous, requires less maintenance, offers fewer distractions and uses less thinking. A simple lifestyle affords you the ability to focus your energies on your inner world.

Avoid the status game. Seek friends from all social layers. Don't buy into the game that decides a persons worth based on their money or profession. I know people I would consider smarter and more enlightened who live on a fraction of the income that others do. Keeping pockets of connections within all levels separates you from the competitive aspects materialism brings.

Judge yourself by your ethics and your understanding. I'd be far happier with myself if I were poor but I understood the world and lived true to a system of ethics, than if I had the opposite. Don't base your self worth on how much you've achieved or the admiration of your peers.

Let go. Buddhism teaches that attachment to things creates suffering. Again, this is all in the mindset. I'm not a Buddhist, but as I understand it, this doesn't mean the only path to true happiness is to abandon everything. It simply means that you stop trying to hold on to all the things you own and the relationships in your life.

You can't take it with you. What is going to matter to you on your deathbed? Looking back at your entire life, what was important? Use that to prioritize.

Remarkable people use their strengths to strengthen themselves and others, and they reach out to others when they need a hand up, a shoulder to cry on, or a lick in the butt. Mostly, they treat themselves kindly.