As working urbanites stuck for long hours in the city centre, many of us are subject to endless materialistic propaganda everywhere we turn.
Streaming over the radio, screaming on billboards, stuck on buses, and swaggered by models in shopping malls.
The shine of all of that material allure does make it hard for anyone to resist wanting more clothes, shoes, cars, bling, bags, gadgets and paraphernalia galore…it never ends.
Actually it’s the same with technology. Everywhere the yuppie looks, he or she sees some funky new technology thingy that is screaming to be downloaded, tried, tested, used and ultimately enslaving us to yet another ‘cannot-do-without’ thingamajig.
We add Skype on to the plain old SMS, followed by Whatsapp, followed by ChatON followed by WeChat followed by Kakao Talk, and before we know it there are several chat apps to communicate with our friends.
The same with digital distractions – the incessant mobile, iPads, music podcasts, the hundreds of tweets, social website updates and same-interest groupies, MPEG players with hi-definition surround audio that also plugs into the fridge for a virtual projection of its food contents onto the 3D hologram plasma base… yes, you get the drift that NO, its NEVER ever ending.
With the accessibility and availability of so many options for material accumulation, it would be inconceivable and almost mad that the consumer may not want anymore.
And this is when Yours Truly got an epiphany one recent early morning dawn while jogging through my usual trail, with a blank mind, save for the focus on my breathing well enough so as not to burst my heart from the strenuous run.
A mantra formed at the back of my head, something that sounded like “I don’t need that” being played over and over again accompanied by a floating vision of all material wants being crossed out of my long checklist of material ‘must haves’.
Today, six months after the “I don’t need that” moment, I think I’m doing pretty OK with not a single purchase (except for consumables), or software download or website additions (except truly required for work).
I have been able to be content with less, and find use for more already owned stuff.
Work priorities, family and friends, specialised information and valuable things are emerging out of a whole mess of important things as the truly ‘must haves’ to invest time and effort in.
There is less clutter to deal with, less pressure to earn more, and no anxiety in wanting to keep up with the Joneses.
IT BYTES BACK! says: Not wanting more and making do with less might be the right attitude to take on to halt human-folk’s natural greed cycle that hides itself within the name cause of ‘development’
