Black Friday, and the Christmas shopping season more generally, is an interesting phenomenon to observe if you can find a way to not be completely immersed in it. I’ve mentioned before that I find malls and other similarly crowded spaces to be overwhelming, so I have come to dread the Christmas gift buying process. I hate the idea of buying a gift just for the sake of having something to hand over at a pre-appointed time, so I always agonize over finding items that I can imagine sparking some small measure of joy in the recipient, which doesn’t make the process any easier. On a good year (and thankfully, this was a good year), I can find everything I need in one or two trips, and then blissfully sit out the rest of the season. Because I still partake in the experience, though, I’ve never really questioned it. Until now. I was at West Edmonton Mall last weekend for a kids’ Christmas party at Galaxyland, and saw all the stores prepped and ready for the holiday rush, and that’s when it struck me.
How bizarre and over-the-top this whole thing is!
The overflowing abundance of stuff, waiting to be bought. The artificial pressure to JUST FIND SOMETHING ANYTHING BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE AND OH IT’S ON SALE WHAT LUCK. People just scurrying about here, there, everywhere, like the world is about to run out of stuff.
Like I said, I’ve been there. I’ve been there and never thought twice about it. But now that I’ve had this jarring moment of clarity, I can’t un-see it. And I’m trying to sort out how I feel about it.
On one hand, I do love giving presents. I hate shopping for them, but I love to give them. I love the look on the person’s face when I’ve nailed the present. [Or maybe I simply appreciate their good acting skills, hah.] It’s as satisfying, if not more so, than receiving the perfect gift myself. Especially when it comes to my kids. My parents did what they could when I was growing up, with few resources, and I never forgot how magical it felt to find out what was hiding in Santa’s bag. I probably can’t replicate that feeling for my kids, because they don’t experience the same scarcity as I did the other 364 days of the year, but I still want to try – especially around the holidays.
On the other hand, I have noticed that I am increasingly bothered by too much stuff. And that includes my kids’ stuff and our (grown-ups’) stuff around the house. I have always been pretty ruthless when it comes to editing my closet, but I now feel compelled to apply the same approach to everything else. Which is not to say that I am a minimalist in any sense; I love being surrounded by beautiful things, and an empty uncluttered room will never match the satisfaction of the former. But I am becoming increasingly choosy. I want to give room in my life (physically and mentally) to things that matter to me – whether books, my favourite clothes, my collections – and sweep away the rest.
This is not revolutionary by any means; after all, Marie Kondo wrote a whole book about it. I’d heard the message (or some version of it) before but this is the first time when it’s come to me organically, accompanied by a sudden shift in perspective. The timing is not accidental. My husband and I have been thinking about the future a lot recently; we’ve started meeting with a “wealth advisor” (which sounds ridiculously bougie, I know) to talk through our plans – or should I say “hopes”? – for retirement. This is another new experience for me (and both of us, actually). Growing up poor but with thrifty parents, the concept of “saving for a rainy day” was well-ingrained in me, but planning? Intentionally deciding when and how to use that money? That was a foreign concept, because the goal was simply to not end up destitute – I didn’t grow up expecting to have “wealth” to worry about. Now, of course, our “wealth” is relative, which means we still have to make plans. Meet savings targets. Worry about investment returns. And, possibly most important of all, really think about what matters to us. When money is finite, putting that money – now and in the future – where our hearts are is the way to feel “rich” while still being able to pay the bills.
Another of the benefits of having the parents I do is that the concept of “keeping up with the Joneses” was unknown to me during my formative years. (Which is not to say that I didn’t desperately covet material things during my childhood and teenage years; I did. But I just accepted that I couldn’t have those things, end of story. I can’t imagine telling my father that I needed some particular pair of jeans because Susie at school had one; he would have looked at me as if I had two heads.) It seems to me that chasing the Joneses is a habit that’s learned early, and mighty hard to break. That said, our retail culture works damn hard to perpetuate it. I haven’t been completely immune to the lure or “More! Better!” myself. I would like to think that I’ve been selective about giving in to it, but my recent epiphany/moment of clarity was a push to question myself further.
Do I need this? is a good question. Perhaps the only question that should matter, but which, for some reason, sends me into an existential spiral. So, instead, I’ve started to ask myself something else:
Do I really want this?
I know; it seems like an invitation to cop out. In truth, I’m not really sure if this question would have worked for me in the past. When you grow up without a lot of things, and you suddenly have the option of acquiring them, knowing where to draw the line is hard. But I feel like I am finally starting to move past that scarcity mentality. I can now afford to have the thing – now, tomorrow, whenever the mood strikes. But do I really want it?
I don’t window-shop a lot online, but I will occasionally read a comment on a forum or on Instagram that sends me to a retailer’s website. Almost inevitably, I end up putting an item or two in my cart … and then I close the browser. Because the truth is that I certainly don’t need, and rarely truly want those things. They’re pretty, and I probably would enjoy owning them if I bought them, but they’re not things that I want more than anything else I could buy for the same amount. I’d rather take the same $40 and go thrifting; at the very least, I get an experience – the thrill of looking for treasure in other people’s rubbish, one of my favourite things – that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. And if I buy anything, chances are that it won’t make me any less happy than the thing I could have bought online. In fact, by virtue of having had to spend more effort in finding it, it’s probably going to mean more to me.
This has been one hell of a meandering post, and if you’re still reading, kudos and thanks. I don’t have a neat little bow of a moral to wrap around it because if there is one thing I’m learning, the older I get, is that speaking in definitives is a dangerous proposition. I do think we would all be happier if we spent more time thinking about what makes us truly happy, as opposed to assuming that what we are told by others should make us happy, actually does. But that is hardly a revelation.
I will end with this thought. A friend recently posted on social media about JOMO – the Joy of Missing Out. As a devoted homebody, I totally get JOMO when it comes to most experiences. Sky diving? No, thanks. Music festivals? I’d rather be reading. Travel? Yes, but only under specific circumstances. However, as a materialist, FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) was more my speed when it came to things; but I’m starting to get it now. Indiscriminately “more” is not better; even “buy less, but better” isn’t necessarily better. To me, JOMO isn’t about minimalism or some kind of virtue-signaling; it’s about finding out what matters to you and relishing the pleasure of excluding the surrounding “noise”. It’s the satisfaction of feeling like you already have all your heart’s desires, right there with you.
A quick note: I acknowledge that a lot of what I write above presumes a huge amount of financial and other forms of privilege. These are simply my random musings/observations (as an upper/middle class white woman) of and about my own behaviours, and no value judgments are intended or implied.
