Time To Stop Confusing Needs With Wants | Finding Enough | The Philosophy Of Minimalism| Video Essay

owning less is great but there's something even better wanting less when it comes to buying and owning things we're captivated by the glamour of goods for sale regardless of whether we need them or would enjoy them for long if we had them according to minimalism one reason this is the case is because we are each a part of a consumption oriented culture today consumerism surrounds us like the air we breathe and like air it's invisible we hardly know how much we are influenced by the philosophy that we must buy if we want to be happy in today's globalized world consumerism feels normal and natural to us we go along with the carnival of consumerism only occasionally feeling a twinge of doubt about whether something might be wrong with it all minimalist says the key to overcoming our consumeristic Tendencies is to deliberately peer into our blind spot and see what we have been ignoring we have to measure the magnitude of consumeristic propaganda and observe how thoroughly it permeates public discourse and our own personal Outlook only when we admit we have been influenced by it we can take a stand against consumerism's effects on on our lives in a society where social status is everything recognizing and rejecting consumerism is not easy but the reward is well worth the effort in 1,929 s Ernest dictor a Freudian psychoanalyst who assisted advertisers said to some extent the needs and wants of people have to be continuously stirred up since then advertisers deliberately began to link ownership with happiness in the public mind the same strategy is still in operation as one article explains today an iPad the right vacation or the latest sneakers have become prerequisites for getting respect certain brands of beer are synonymous with friendship and a sense of community an oversized house points to status and proof of your earnings and and ability to provide for a family these are all of course ideas created by advertisers whose clients profit when we buy more than we need the philosophy of minimalism says advertisers have been so successful at playing on our selfish desires for ownership that today buying and being happy are considered virtually synonymous it's as if the purpose of life is self-gratification and buying things is the only way to get there and the real worry is we don't think about this we just assume it above this to make resisting consumerism even harder some of the finest Minds in our generation use every tool they can devise to craft us into even greedier consumers today purchasing new things has never been easier as simple as is clicking a single button needless to say marketers society's pressure and the culture in general influence our shopping and consumption habits however we will fall short in our analysis if we place all the blame on external forces there is no doubt a lot of the blame falls on us nobody is forcing us to buy their products we decide to overspend and over accumulate there is need to ask ourselves are we buying too much stuff because deep down we think it will insulate us from the harms of a chancy world and if so what is that costing us in our society too many of us believe security can be adequately found in the personal ownership of possessions however there is a grain of Truth in that belief certainly food and water clothing and shelter are essential for survival but the list of possessions that we truly need for life is quite short and most of us already have those things the reality is we have too quickly confused needs with wants and security with comfort as a result many of us collect large stockpiles of possessions in the name of security when we are actually accumulating Comfort or desired pleasure we work long hours to purchase these things and we construct bigger houses to store them we plot and plan to acquire everything because we think they provide lasting security however we need to remind ourselves it costs us in other areas of life such as our family and friendships according to Margaret Clark a professor of psychology at Yale a sense of security can come from both material goods and from supportive relationships but it's easy to get out of balance Clark writes humans are social creatures with vulnerabilities and close relationships afford protections for examples infants wouldn't survive without other people in same way material possessions also afford protection and security humans need food clothing and shelter to survive so it takes a mix of things to make you feel secure but the problem is if you heighten one source of security people feel less concerned about the others our lives are fragile and this world is unpredictable it's no wonder why we all long for security yet lasting security can never be found in temporal possessions the contingencies of Life are too many and the power of possessions to protect us is too weak this is why we always desire more we never arrive at a full sense of security so what should we do given our legitimate need for a sense of security we should look to the very things we so often sacrifice in our pursuit of more and more possessions relationships so if you decide that one of your motives for over accumulating is because you're relying on your things to give you a sense of safety then I urge you to cut back on buying and owning and instead put more effort into how you relate to the people around you rich relationships with your family and friends can not only give you Joy but also make you feel safe in a web of caring therefore St stop trusting too much in money and material possessions as your source of security they will never deliver it minimize your ownership and you'll be freed up to find real security have you ever test driven a car before deciding whether to buy it has your doctor ever given you a medication for a trial period to see if it helped your symptoms I bet most of us have done there are situ sitations where we want to try living with an option before we fully commit to it in other words we experiment with it experimentation is a powerful tool you can use in developing your own expression of minimalism the idea is simple if you aren't sure you want to get rid of something live without it for a while and then decide whether it's necessary to you or Superfluous it's a way of testing your assumptions about how much you need Patrick ran who has given the concept of enough in his book titled enough Patrick writes about finding enough and says enough comes from trying things out it comes from challenging your preconceptions it comes from having less trying more than reducing to find out what is just right it comes from letting go of your fear of less it comes from letting go of the false security of more it also comes from having more losing it all and finding out what need really is enough is hard work so to get there one must let go of what ifs guesses and half truths one must overcome fear self-doubt and thoughts of grandeur one must ask hard questions to find harder answers but please keep in mind even that changes just as the wire Walker must make slight adjustments to constantly changing conditions so must you therefore the goal then is not to find what is or will be enough forever that is impossible the goal is to discover the tools and strategies you need to find what is enough for you right now and provide the flexibility to adjust as the conditions change the concept of enough is a personal discovery that must take into account any number of important factors but if we never look for it we will never Discover it imain a tight RPP Walker sticks in your mind that's you up there on that wire most of the time we lean to the side of having too much but we don't even know it because we're so used to leaning that way however experimenting with living without things enables us to see what it's like to lean toward having too little only as we do so can we find the right balance in the middle according to Patrick ran that place of balance isn't too much and it isn't too little it's just enough and experimentation helps us find it most of us already own more than we need we passed the point of enough a long time ago we just didn't realize it and we never will until we begin to see how little we actually need through experimentation that's all for today's video If you enjoyed this video please don't forget to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to our channel for more empowering content thanks for watching

Channel: Seeker

Views: 11,614

Keywords: Personality development, video essay, Productivity, self care, motivation, Mindfulness, Confidence building, School of life, seeker, Philosophy

Id: aXTE_riWmUc

Length: 11min 30sec (690 seconds)

Published: Mon May 20 2024