Breaking the Cultural Addiction to Consumerism

And giving minimalism a much-needed makeover

We are all addicts. To varying degrees.

Not in the drug and alcohol sense, but in terms of consumerism.

The perpetual desire to buy more and more to fill our lives. All the while, our lives become more empty.

The magic of marketing and advertising tells us that what we’re really missing in our lives is that new big screen TV with images so vivid you think you’ll be transported into whatever movie or show you’re watching. Or, what you really need is the latest smartphone so you can take professional selfies with its new and improved camera.

And don’t get me started on kitchen gadgets…that used to be my personal addiction.

If you happen to live in the upper echelons of society, then your addiction is likely worse. Got to have that second vacation home in the Hamptons, right? Or that yacht to cruise around in and show off to your friends. No, what you really need is that Segway, because we all know walking is overrated these days.

Think about the first thing that you want to do after renting or buying a new place to live. You got to fill it up with stuff! Can’t just have all that empty space not being used for something.

And the bigger the place, the more stuff we need to buy to fill it up. But the more stuff we buy, the bigger the place we need. This is where we get trapped in the vicious cycle of consumerism.

As George Carlin said in one of his many amazing stand-up routines, “That’s the whole meaning of life…trying to find a place for your stuff.” His words, more prescient than ever.

Not only do we have to constantly buy more stuff, but we also find it difficult to part with our existing stuff. There is a literal word in the dictionary for this: hoarding. It is but one of many symptoms of our addiction to consumerism.

We have so much stuff, in fact, that some of us need to buy storage units to hold the stuff that we can’t fit into our homes. Fun fact: there are more storage facilities in the U.S. than McDonald’s or Starbucks locations — combined.

There are shows on television like American Pickers and Pawn Stars that seemingly glorify our obsession and collection of more stuff. Retailers created a special day just so we can buy more stuff — Black Friday. Billboards, social media ads, cable ads, emails, magazines, brochures, and celebrities tell us we need more stuff. All the time. We can’t escape it.

And while we continue to buy more and more stuff, our planet is telling us we might be reaching our limits of how much we can consume. Although some might be able to afford large homes or storage units so they can keep buying more stuff, we don’t currently have another planet that we can store our stuff. There is no storage unit for Earth.

And our stuff isn’t just filling up the Earth in terms of trash spewn across the land or plastics floating in the oceans. It’s making life on Earth more difficult. It’s redistributing and destroying ecosystems that have thrived for thousands, or even millions of years. Wiping out species faster than we can count them. It’s polluting our water and air. It’s heating up our planet and causing extreme weather events to become more severe and frequent.

This may seem counterintuitive at first, but not when you realize that our consumption-based greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions far outweigh our sector-based GHG emissions in many cases.

According to an analysis done by the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group of 79 cities around the world, 80 percent of the cities had consumption-based emissions that were larger than sector-based emissions. And in more developed cities in Europe and North America, the consumption-based emissions can be three times as large as the sector-based emissions. In Marin County near where I live, consumption-based emissions can be up to 800 percent higher than sector-based emissions.

And here’s the important thing to remember about all this: as we work on decarbonizing our cities and countries here in the developed world, we’re still consuming things made largely in the developing world that, in many cases, are not as far along in their decarbonization efforts and then must be shipped long distances using fossil fuels (since the shipping industry is still lagging in terms of decarbonization).

Thus, all that accumulation and consumption of stuff really is making our planet less stable and habitable. But it makes us happy so it’s worth it, right?

Even though our consumption has been linked to increases in happiness in some studies, could it simply be that buying more stuff gives us the dopamine hit we need to feed our addiction? And I would argue, consumption leads to a fleeting feeling of happiness compared to other actions we can take that lead to longer-lasting happiness such as helping others.

Additionally, since we know that income and consumption are correlated — and that there exists an income satiation level that varies by region — it stands to reason that there is also a consumption satiation level that varies by region. Meaning that once that level is reached, the returns in happiness become more marginal, and may even begin to decrease.

Think about people in your life who have more stuff than they can even store. Are they normally the happiest people? Or does something seem to still be missing even when they have all that stuff?

So how do we break this addiction?

One approach is to tell people to consume less and embrace minimalism. But the problem with that is the framing.

Too often, the environmental movement is associated with sacrifice, which makes it a tougher sell to the public when talking about taking climate action.

Therefore, I think minimalism is in need of a reframe.

What I have embraced and I encourage others to embrace is maximalism. Maximalism of what is important to you (i.e., what brings you meaning) and what is most useful to you.

Importance maximalism is illustrated by things that are unique to you, things that were passed down from your family, and things you are most proud of.

A big screen TV isn’t likely the most important possession you own. But maybe an acoustic guitar is. Or your art supply set. Maybe it’s a collection of basketball cards. Or a book signed by your favorite author.

Utility maximalism is illustrated by the things you use most often or for the longest duration regardless of the reason. This could also be an acoustic guitar, or it might be your laptop you need for school or work.

When combined, utility and importance maximalism ensures that the stuff we do have is both necessary and important to us whether that’s for survival in the modern world or something that brings us joy and happiness.

An example of this in practice would be first looking in your closet at the clothes you already have to figure out which ones you wear most often and are most important to you for whatever reason. You realize you largely have what you need and most of the clothes you have you never wear and could care less about. So you donate or repurpose those and buy that jacket you’ll need for the winter months, ideally from a secondhand store— and that’s it.

That way, you don’t end up having more clothes than you know what to do with. Or worrying where you’ll store it all when you have to move. And the clothes you do have are perfect and exactly what you need. They're important to you because they define your style in an intentional way and you feel good wearing them. They complete you. They don’t cause you more stress or anxiety.

By embracing a life of maximalism, we become more connected with the things we care most about, rather than bombarded by things that we feel nothing for. It’s not about taking away anything. It’s about focusing on what matters and maximizing that in your life. When we do that, we will also maximize the ability for life to thrive on this planet.

And yes, we obviously need to decarbonize every sector of our economies, and apply pressure to the industries that pollute our atmosphere, and to the politicians who take their money, and so on. But we’re lying to ourselves if we say that’s all we need to do given that rising consumption will threaten any decarbonization efforts that must be made in the short time window we have.

We need a global cultural transformation to break our addiction to consumerism and embrace a life of utility and importance maximalism.

Dedicated to Davita Lesch who taught me the importance of the reframing technique.

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