Being a Minimalist Makes You Happier
Materialism isn’t just making us more anxious, it’s also killing our planet
You loved that shirt when you saw it online. It looked great on the model who had your skin tone. You got a little of a buzz when you hit the “buy” button on your browser and even felt giddy in anticipation of your new purchase. When it arrived, you tore open the brown paper packaging it was wrapped in with enthusiasm, but when you tried it on for the first time, it somehow lost its luster.
It was too tight or too loose, too bright or too drab, too long or too short, so you wore it once or twice and then tossed it into the bottom drawer. According to a study by relocation company Movinga, if you are like most people, you do not wear at least 50% of your clothes. The rest gets tossed in the back of the closet, only to be thrown out during your next spring cleaning.
The Environmental Cost of Clothes
The problem is that every piece of clothing has an environmental cost. The clothing and textile industry emits 10% of global greenhouse gases, more than shipping and flying put together.
To produce a cotton t-shirt and a pair of jeans requires approximately 8,000 liters, although this will vary depending on where they were made. The fashion industry is responsible for about 20% of the world’s wastewater.
And the carbon footprint? The t-shirt produces about 5.2 lbs (2.34 kg) of CO2, while the jeans produce 73.1 lbs (33.4 kg).
However, many clothes today are not made of cotton, about 60% are also made of plastic. According to a study by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, synthetic clothes dump half a million tons of microplastics into the ocean every year. This is the equivalent of 50 billion plastic bottles, which end up in the food chain.
Despite the environmental costs, globally a garment is worn an average of 120 times. However, in wealthier countries like the UK and the US, for “fashion” clothing, this number drops to just 7 times.
This results in Americans throwing away an average of 71 lbs (32 kg) of clothes per year, 87% of which end up in a landfill or incinerated. The most common reason given for throwing away clothes is a weight change. The second was that it was an impulse buy.
In this age of fast fashion, they dupe us into buying the latest trends by manipulative messages from social media influencers, advertising, and our peers. The pressure to keep up with the latest styles to be perceived as “cool” is higher than ever, but it is destroying our planet.
It’s Not Just Clothes
In our consumer culture, clothes aren’t the only problem. Everything we buy has a price from the raw materials that an item uses to the carbon it emits when it’s manufactured. Computers, smartphones, and electronics are all made using rare earth minerals and precious metals that need to be dug out of the ground. The cases that we carry them in are made of plastic, made from oil, that needs to be drilled for.
Think about all the things cluttering your house. The furniture that you don’t use, the electronic devices that got old. The blender with the broken handle, or that weird hat you bought but never wore.
According to a professional organizer (there is such a profession?), the average American household has 300,000 items in it. Most households have so much stuff that there’s not enough space in their attic or garage to store it all. In the US, there are 48,500 storage facilities, and they are 90% occupied.
The Financial Cost of All This Stuff
Buying so much stuff doesn’t just have an environmental cost, it also has a financial cost as well. 63% of Americans couldn’t afford an emergency of $500 or more. 15% of Americans have no money at all put away for retirement, and 17% only have between $1 and $75,000 saved, far short of the estimated $1 million experts say you’ll need to retire. 41% say that they are likely to run out of money in retirement and only 10% feel confident that they’ll have enough money. Meanwhile, the average American family spends $1700 on clothes each year.
Why We Buy Stuff
So why do we buy so much stuff, anyway? The simple act of shopping and having something novel in your life makes you feel good, but only temporarily. It gives you a shot of dopamine, the pleasure hormone, but since it is fleeting, you have to keep going back to buy more and more stuff.
76% of shoppers say that they get more excited over an online purchase since they have to wait
Then there are the imagined qualities we attribute to our stuff. According to Randy Frost, a professor of psychology at Smith College and author of Stuff, “Our possessions all have magical qualities. Many, if not most, of the things we keep, have an essence that goes beyond the physical character of the object.”
Capitalism, in its current form, is based on creating dissatisfaction in the population, because it doesn’t see people as individuals, but as consumers. Through marketing, the system tells us we are lacking and that we need to buy something to be fulfilled. However, this isn’t by accident, it is by design.
Edward Bernays is considered the father of public relations, which he started in the 1920s. Although advertising was already common, PR was different, in that it didn’t openly seek to promote a product. Bernays’ techniques were much more subtle. Rather, he would try to create an emotional connection to it and make them desire it. It’s no coincidence that Bernays was the nephew of famed psychotherapist Sigmund Freud and he used his uncle’s techniques to manipulate people into buying things.
One of his most famous stunts was the “Torches of Freedom” campaign that took place at the Easter Sunday Parade on March 31, 1929. He hired dozens of women to walk in the parade while smoking a cigarette and had them photographed and published the photos around the world. The photos were shocking because, at the time, women were only allowed to smoke in their homes as it was taboo and immoral for them to smoke in public.
However, these photos were Bernays’ attempt to reframe how the public viewed female smokers. This wasn’t an act of immorality, but one of defiance, feminism, and independence. Ruth Hale, a well-known feminist, even called for women to join in the march, saying, “Women! Light another torch of freedom! Fight another sex taboo!”
This was one of Bernays’ most successful campaigns, and it led to an increase in female smokers and increased revenue for his client, the American Tobacco Company.
Bernays also has a second title, and that is the father of propaganda. Hitler was said to be a fan of his tactics and used them effectively during World War II to market his ideas of a pure-blood Nazi Germany.
After World War II, public relations took off. The question that companies were trying to answer was how to get people to buy things they didn’t need. World War II was a time of austerity and people got into the habit of doing with little, and bought little other than necessities, because all resources were going to fight the war.
Businesses realized that to make money, they needed to get people to buy things they didn’t need by manipulating their emotions to want them.
Think about that for a second. For your entire life, you have been manipulated into buying things you don’t need. If you are an American, then you are also probably working a job that you don’t like since 67% of us are disengaged from our jobs., to buy all that stuff you don’t need. This means that you are going to have to work there longer, to continue this never-ending cycle of buying and buying more, just to store it out of sight or throw it away!
Materialism Doesn’t Make You Happy
But all this buying of stuff must make us happy, right? I mean, everyone in those music videos, advertisements, and on Instagram is wearing shit-eating grins because they are so happy and beautiful.
Not true, studies show that materialistic people are usually more insecure and less happy. According to psychologist Tim Kasser and the author of The High Price of Materialism “We found that the more highly people endorsed materialistic values, the more they experienced unpleasant emotions, depression and anxiety, the more they reported physical health problems, such as stomachaches and headaches, and the less they experienced pleasant emotions and felt satisfied with their lives.” Kasser says that materialism is a way for people to fulfill their unmet psychological needs.
Another study from the University of Arizona agrees and says that buying less stuff can make you happier. Sabrina Helm, who authored the study, says, “People who buy less and consume less show less depressive symptoms, so there’s a positive mental health effect.”
What is Minimalism?
Minimalism is about learning to appreciate and use the stuff we have rather than constantly coveting new things. Learning to express gratitude for the things that you already have can make you happier and healthier, according to research from the University of Pennsylvania.
The less stuff you have, the fewer decisions you have to make about what to wear, or what to drive. The more money you can save to have experiences, which studies show makes us happier than possessions.
The more you minimize, the more you have to save for retirement, which will bring you greater peace of mind knowing that your future is secure.
Finally, having less stuff means less clutter and not having to waste money on a storage facility to manage all that excess crap.
How to Minimize
Start by making a list of all the things you are grateful for having in your life. These can be material things, but they can also be friends, family, skills, and characteristics that you possess. Review this list at least once a week and add to it as your life changes. This exercise can help you feel more satisfied with your life, which means you’ll need less stuff to feel fulfilled.
Then empty your attic, garage, and, if you have one, your storage facility and donate the things that you don’t use or have a sentimental value to Good Will or Salvation Army
Do a budget for how much money you spend on luxury items like clothes, jewelry, accessories, and electronics, and ask yourself whether these things are adding much value to your life. If they’re unnecessary, cut them out. Redirect this money to savings or toward having experiences.
Do a yard sale or start a community swap shop. As the saying goes, “one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. A lot of the things that you aren’t using others will find value in.
Staying Minimal
If you see something you like or want, wait 72 hours before buying it. It’s likely the urge to buy it will have subsided. If it hasn’t, then ask yourself whether you can buy the item used, which will at least cut down on the environmental cost of your purchase.
