Once upon a time, consumers largely dictated demand.
But today, multinational corporations create an excessive supply of often useless goods that overwhelm store shelves. At the same time, these companies invest billions of dollars on campaigns to convince consumers they cannot live without some new product no one will even remember a few years from now.
Yet despite the fact people in the West are enjoying high standards of living unprecedented in human history, many of us seem to feel a certain sense of emptiness and tend to fall prey to advertising tactics that promise far more than they can actually ever deliver.
"Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something," wrote William Goldman in the script for the fairly famous fantasy, romantic comedy motion picture The Princess Bride.
Nevertheless, we need look no further than Black Friday and Boxing Day sales to see what appear to be massive mindless hordes of consumer zombies who are willing to step over one another, push and shove as well as camp overnight for some meaningless material product that in the short term will bring only a brief buzz of satisfaction, while in the long run leaving a person feeling empty again.
Simply put, the joy derived from buying more stuff is short-lived and often counteracted by the stress of drowning in needless debt.
This is perhaps the main message of self-proclaimed "minimalists" Joshua Fields Millburn and his friend Ryan Nicodemus, both of whom were successfully climbing the corporate ladder throughout their 20s until they realized how unfulfilled and miserable the pursuit of a materialistic lifestyle left them.
Essentially, they implore people to self-assess their lives and seriously consider what matters most to them. When the two friends embarked on that journey for themselves, they found many redundancies in their possessions that they were able to eliminate without regret. The result was a less cluttered and stressful as well as more fulfilling life focused on relationships and community rather than collecting piles of products.
Without taking the time to fully understand their perspective, some people might understandably assume the minimalists are some kind of anti-capitalist communists who want people to stop consuming. Period.
However, that could not be further from the case.
Instead, they simply urge people to be more deliberate and thoughtful on every purchase they consider rather than buying stuff on random impulse alone ó something even this journalist is occasionally guilty of. From their point of view, which is hard to argue against, this approach can be liberating not only to one's wallet but also to one's spirit or state of mind.
In essence, minimalists espouse conscientious consumption habits guided by one crucial question everyone should ask him- or herself before swiping the credit card at the till, "Will this purchase add value to my life?"
If the answer is no, don't bother ó even if whatever it is happens to be on sale, chances are you'll thank yourself later.
