Stop Buying

Have you ever walked into a garage, attic, or storage unit to see it filled to the brim with junk that isn’t being used or in some cases was never even opened? Perhaps the ultimate irony of our chronic consumerism is the fact that we often accumulate stuff for the sake of buying it, and we spend money storing it only to spend more money when we throw it all out in the end. “Purposeless consumerism”—which, in a way, isn’t much different than paying for the ability to take an unused good from a store and throw it out—is really the worst kind of consumerism.

The concept of “degrowth” asks: do I really need this object, or am I buying it because I like the feeling of buying something?” It originated from the ideas of ecological economics and anti-consumerism. The key to the concept is that reducing your consumption will not reduce your well-being; rather, it will maximize your happiness by allowing you to have more time and savings to spend on things like art, music, family, and community. Today we consume 26 times more stuff than we did 60 years ago. But ask yourself: are we 26 times happier?