Enough is Enough… 46 days to go
319 days ago I thought that a year without buying anything new for myself, would be a nearly impossible task. Now with only 46 days to go i know I will continue with this commitment next year and the years to come.
After having worked through all my personal issues with not buying anything new (see previous blogs ;-) ), it has become so clear to me now how we are all operating under the pressure of our commercially driven environment. The amount of ‘sale’ emails I receive (my personal favourite is “Friday sale”), the ‘great’ deals in the shops (buy 2 get the 3rd one free), the peer pressure (you really ‘need’ to buy this), it’s all there to keep our economy ‘healthy’. Or in other words: ‘to put money in the pockets of the fair few multinationals and their shareholders’.
The main thing I realised through ‘Enough is Enough’ is that:
WE HAVE THE POWER TO CHANGE OUR SOCIETY
Now I have to say that I never realised that the power is with the consumers, but it is! The main thing we have to do is to become aware of our addiction (to buy) and to resist the powerful marketing messages which are continuously thrown at us: Drink alcohol to be happy, Use make up to stay young, Wear new fashion to look beautiful.
Becoming aware of this I looked up the definition of Consumerism this is what I found: “Consumerism is a social and economic order and ideology that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts.” After reading that I have to admit that I had a little vomit in my mouth (apologies ;-)) social and economic order? EVER INCREASING AMOUNTS? I feel cheated on and manipulated but I also feel hope because a ‘social order and ideology’ can be changed!
When we (and yes that is especially us women) start buying the RIGHT products (local, clean, fair, organic, plastic free) we will change our consumer society! Producers WILL make the products that we buy and will STOP making products that we are not willing to buy anymore. Now this is already happening a bit (did you notice how Coconut Oil is in kind of everything nowadays?!) but we can do so much better!
My Enough is Enough ‘quest’ has opened my eyes and inspired me (and others (yay!)) to buy less (actually nearly nothing really) and realised that it makes NO difference in my personal life. Well to be honest it has made a difference… It feels like such a release to never have to go in a shop ( not feeding my addiction) and I can laugh now at the marketing nonsense that is out there (really see through it and it’s pretty funny).
So with 46 days to go and the crazy (commercially driven) Xmas madness in front of us, the thing I’d like to ask you is to become aware of WHAT and especially HOW you buy.
Look in your closet and see how many beautiful things you never/rarely wear.
Withstand the continuous steam of messages that you receive to buy something new.
Check out why you buy something, do you NEED it or just WANT it.
And for your Xmas shopping please try to support the (local) people who are working so hard to produce products and food that is good for both you and the environment.
And finally see if you can maybe integrate a ‘buying free day’ in your week. For example buy nothing on Wednesdays and see how that is for you.…
PS As mentioned my Enough is Enough ‘quest’ will continue next year. My idea now is to add not buying ANY products that have ‘one use plastic’. An idea that scares me (what about my shampoo, tooth paste, tea, magazines (wrapped in plastic)) but hey I love the challenge. I’ll write more about this idea towards that start of 2018 ;-)
PPS The picture is taken in Namur, Belgium, of the statue “Searching for Utopia” by Jan Fabre. It represents a female turtle and the male artist driving the back of a turtle to look for a utopia, to look for the unknown, for the other side.
