I Want…or I Give?
How baby steps can make a massive difference.
It is inbuilt in our culture as we are taught how to want things. What do you want to watch? What do you want to eat? Where do you want to go? What do you want to play with? Write your Christmas list to Santa Claus with everything you most want.
We bombard children into making choices all the time about their wants. It is hardly surprising, then, that this skill of knowing what is longed for, wanted, and desired is well-rehearsed.
It is made ever stronger and consolidated as children grow into teenagers. What team do you want to support? What hobby do you want to learn? Which friends do you want to hang out with? By adulthood, we have created the perfect consuming being. We reward, celebrate, and share with ‘things’ that someone wants.
Do we ever stop though and question this consumption? Trade is a historic process where we would barter with the things we could sell in exchange for the things we want to buy. Today though, we focus so much time and effort on the things we want.
JB MacKinnon (The Day the World Stops Shopping, 2021) states “When people buy less stuff, you get immediate drops in emissions, resource consumption and pollution, unlike anything we’ve achieved with green technology.” Not only this, but there is a serious impact on our mental health because we are given to a life of feeling in competition with everyone else. This breeds feelings of inadequacy and envy and seeks to reward a culture of overworking. This then has an impact on our physical health and the fabric of our families and society as a whole.
It isn’t just consumerism though. We have a wish list in our relationships, our jobs, our friendships, our children and loved ones. We focus on what we want and that becomes the all-important motivation that drives us. In doing so, we can lack loyalty, compassion and love. We focus our attention on the quick fixes and the things that we want, regardless of who has to suffer as a result.
It has become such a common way of living that we rarely focus on what we can give. Last week I was teaching one of my 16-year-old students. He said that he doesn’t want to live like his parents. He doesn’t want to work every hour to buy things for his children or to spend money on an expensive lifestyle that is done to maintain status. Instead, he would choose to work fewer hours but to spend far more time with his children living a simpler life. I felt humbled.
I don’t believe that consumerism is the answer to our problems. I don’t think that our constant focus on what we want, or think we want, is healthy or productive. We are destroying our planet with our insatiable greed for ‘things’ and we are breaking people when we put our wants before anyone else.
I am back to my favourite topic of ‘all or nothing’ thinking. There will be people who use the logic that we live in our society where everyone does the same thing, and who wants to live like a troglodyte? It isn’t practical, it isn’t desirable, and therefore, crack on with what we are doing. If we didn’t buy things, people would pay less tax, everyone would be out of work, and life would be a mess, ergo, continue as before.
I know that life does not need to be like this. Most of us are hypocritical to some degree or other, so that should not stop us from doing something proactive and positive. If we all changed just one tiny thing, the results would be world-changing.
If we normally buy 4 new items of clothing a month and reduce that to 3, then we have made a massive difference to the Earth’s resources. If we then use the money we have saved to help support a local charity, multiple people benefit from our giving.
If we normally work overtime every weekend to afford a nice holiday, and we halve this to afford a less expensive holiday but spend more weekends doing enjoyable things, then that makes a massive difference to the quality of our life. If we take a couple of hours of that free time to help someone in need, then we have made a massive difference to someone else’s quality of life.
How to change the habits of a lifetime and lessons well learnt is doable with tiny baby steps. Instead of thinking, “What do I want?” we can think, “What can I give?” Think of the skills we have that can be given. It might be free babysitting for a worn-out parent or time spent working a few hours for a charity. Do we have professional skills we can offer from our ability as a solicitor, teacher, or doctor to a chef, hairdresser, or electrician? We all have something to give. We can listen to a child reading, listen to someone who needs to offload, visit someone in a hospital, or begin a process of making our neighbourhood a better place. We can write one story a year that we don’t put behind a paywall or buy a Medium gift to give to someone who would appreciate it.
Many people on Medium have already worked this out. There are stories of how much money some people have made and there are people who are whizzing off AI-written stories at a story a minute. I am not sure that this is the experience of most people, though. I think people here care. They give their ideas, their opinions, and their beautiful words because they understand the beauty of giving. My friend writes pieces that are informative and interesting and he does so without putting stories behind a paywall. Many editors run their publications for free, putting in time and effort for others to benefit from. The wonderful Pub Crawl was organised and enjoyed by many of us without it costing us anything.
There are people in every society who do so much to benefit others. There are people trying to buy less and to be more mindful of how they shop. It only takes a baby step to make a difference. If we keep taking baby steps, we are moving towards a better future for everyone.
