Content

• Steps

For many people, moving away from materialism means becoming happy. The very moment when you stop hanging price tags on things, activities and even people, happiness will come into your life by itself.

Steps

1. 1 Stop treating shopping as a hobby. Stop thinking about the mall as a great way to pass your time. The problem is that the place itself is literally saturated with the ideology of materialism. Everything is for sale here. Shop owners are willing to go to great lengths to get you to buy their product. Advertising is everywhere. If you haven't bought anything, you will feel dissatisfied. And if you leave with full packages of all sorts of nonsense, it means that you have lost in the battle with brands, and they won a complete victory over you!
   • Don't go to the mall with friends. Go shopping alone and regard these trips as a necessity, not as entertainment.
   • When going to the store, you should know exactly what you need, buy this item, and then leave the mall immediately.
   • Use a list tactic of 30 days. If you have decided that you definitely need to buy something, write it down on the list. Then tell yourself that you cannot buy the item in less than 30 days. At the end of 30 days, if you are still sure you need to buy this item, go to the store and buy it. This waiting period will help you figure out if you really need the item or not.
2. 2 Buy used items. If you urgently need to buy something, try to find and buy this object from your hands, and not new. Thrift stores, second-hand shops, flea markets have different goals than regular commercial stores. This is not completely anti-materialistic, but certainly less so than the stores in the malls.
   • Online services such as Avito or e-bay will help you purchase used goods much more easily than before. Buying and selling goods on these services without intermediation can help you climb out of the endless circle of consumption ideology.
   • Buying goods at a thrift store or at a flea market suggests that you are dealing directly with another person who wants to sell something, and not with a faceless corporation.
3. 3 Limit your television viewing. You don't have to completely isolate yourself from television, just remember that advertising is literally flooding the blue screen. This does not mean that advertising is taking up more and more space on television. However, even non-advertising content bears the imprints of advertisers' consumer ideology. For example, the clothes that the actors of TV series wear are not chosen by themselves. They are wearing clothes that meet the required demographic characteristics.
   • Force yourself to give up watching TV for a week as an experiment. But if you can't do it at all, stop for at least 3 days.
   • Calculate how many hours a week you watch TV. Then think about what you would really be missing if you stopped watching TV. Watch only those TV shows that you really need, and forget about all the rest.
   • Only watch TV with someone, not alone. Watching TV together can cut the material side of it as you connect with other people rather than just letting ads take over your mind.
4. 4 Reduce your time on the Internet. Unfortunately, the Internet immediately takes the second position after television in the dissemination of consumer ideology. The spread of the cult of fame, annoying advertisements and online shopping practically deprive you of the opportunity to escape the material side of the Internet.
   • Even more than TV, the Internet encourages self-centeredness and lonely lifestyles. Instead of becoming an Internet hermit, take an active part in “real” social life: make new “non-virtual friends” instead of Facebook or Twitter friends.
   • Stop using any one of the Internet functions. Basically, users use the Internet for more than one function. They play games online, read news, buy goods. It will be much easier to stop using one of these functions than to stop using everything at once. Plus, it will help you keep track of your time on the Internet.
5. 5 Think more about the environment. Most of the environmental problems that exist today, including global warming, growing garbage and air pollution, have been caused by attempts to sell and buy natural processes.
   • Make a connection between deteriorating environmental conditions and a materialistic lifestyle. For example, buying bottled water results in tons of plastic waste that dangles in rivers and lakes, not to mention the oceans.
   • Make recycling a religion. If you truly believe in recycling and reusing things, you will see how foolish it is to attribute a price to things based on how much they cost.
   • Man is also part of a natural process. Increasing your environmental responsibility will help you rebuild yourself as a person.
6. 6 Get rid of the trash. Go through your closets and start getting rid of what you no longer need. For many, it is a revelation how much garbage they have accumulated over the years. By getting rid of the junk, you will understand a lot, for example, how unconscious consumption can be. All this is unnecessary for you! You don't get any pleasure keeping all this stuff. However, it will become much easier for you when your house is empty of these unnecessary things.
7. 7 Take part in non-materialistic forms of entertainment. There are many entertainment in the world that are not related to TV or the Internet. Play board games, create, go hiking in your area. Try to visit your family more often. Volunteer with a charity.
   • Read a book instead of a magazine. Magazines have long ceased to make a profit on the cost of subscriptions. Now it's a matter of advertising! Reading a book will allow you to breathe freely from advertising.
   • get to know your neighbors. Build relationships with them, just like your parents and grandparents did. Spend more time with them. Have lunch or dinner with them. Try to understand what they like being around you and what they are not comfortable with.
   • Attend non-professional sporting events. Attendance at professional sporting events has become so expensive that not everyone can afford it. It will be worth a lot of money if you want to go to basketball with a family of 4, for example, taking into account the money for food and souvenirs that you can spend. However, many schools and other organizations organize amateur competitions. So what's wrong with looking at one of these sporting events.
   • Remember that everything in life happens only once, and your attachment to any object (be it material or emotional) makes this object a part of your life. By focusing all your attention on such subjects, you forget to live your life without worries. And where there is concern, there is no happiness. So live happily and don't get attached to anything by greed, emotion, or value.