{"id":2541,"date":"2008-07-18T03:40:20","date_gmt":"2008-07-18T11:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.inmff.net\/peidm2\/2008\/07\/18\/love-and-battles-of-consumerism\/"},"modified":"2008-07-18T03:40:20","modified_gmt":"2008-07-18T11:40:20","slug":"love-and-battles-of-consumerism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inmff.net\/peidm\/2008\/07\/18\/love-and-battles-of-consumerism\/","title":{"rendered":"Love and Battles of Consumerism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been struggling with my consumerism lately.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m in a position right now that I have ample cash flow to spend and not have to worry about meeting my monthly bills.  Right now my biggest goal is to get rid of debt, which I have been doing at quite a nice clip.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand I&#8217;ve also been buying a lot of stuff lately.  In no particular order I have bought:<\/p>\n<ul><\/p>\n<li>Six pieces of clothing (~$120 or so)<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>A Sharper Image Air Purifier<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>An iPhone<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Some random accessories for my bike<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>A horde of shaving supplies<\/li>\n<p><\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p>I walked by a homeless guy then a driver in a BMW pulling into a parking garage. I was on the same block, and passed both within 20 seconds of each other.  I was shocked at the differential in quality of living in such a close space; That brought about quite a bit of cognitive dissonance. <\/p>\n<p>I have this strange desire to rid myself my iPhone.  Not because I don&#8217;t want it or like it, but I look at it and wonder if that is money better spent on improving public transportation or access to healthcare.<\/p>\n<p>There is the flip side to the argument that buy purchasing an iPhone I have supported development and job creation, albeit in China (and to a lesser extent Cupertino).<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>In many ways, I want not to want.<\/p>\n<p>I think once you begin wanting and allowing yourself to fulfill your wants it becomes a never ending cycle of fulfilling wants, without a justifiable end or corresponding an increase in happiness.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>I can justify the iPhone in my mind.  I&#8217;ve gotten rid of my car, so I&#8217;m using it for info on buses and the like, and to have handier access to maps.  But by deciding not to want my car I&#8217;ve created and fulfilled another want.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been debating repeating my <a href=\"\/peidm\/archives\/001261.html\">purchasing free<\/a> experiment again.  It was refreshing to make it all a week without buying anything.  I wrote &#8220;In many ways it feels good to purchase something new. How many times do you hear people bragging about their latest purchase?&#8221; back then.  I&#8217;ve definitely bragged about my iPhone, but I keep trying not to. <\/p>\n<p>Right before I went out to buy it I had a friend tell me, &#8220;I have a rule &#8211; never love anything that can&#8217;t love you back.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That is good advice that I am trying to follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been struggling with my consumerism lately. I&#8217;m in a position right now that I have ample cash flow to spend and not have to worry about meeting my monthly bills. Right now my biggest goal is to get rid of debt, which I have been doing at quite a nice clip. On the other [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inmff.net\/peidm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inmff.net\/peidm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inmff.net\/peidm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inmff.net\/peidm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inmff.net\/peidm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.inmff.net\/peidm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2541\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inmff.net\/peidm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inmff.net\/peidm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inmff.net\/peidm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}