Day 48: Basket case

I have been doing a weird thing. I keep opening up Amazon and adding things to my basket. Mostly it’s stuff to teach with (I lecture in music) but I could certainly listen to most of that on Spotify or get the books from the library. It’s a yearning that just stops short of purchase, but totals a fair amount (around £65 at the last look).

 

Before I started this experiment I have clearly been wasting all this money on stuff I don’t need to buy. But I can’t seem to stop the craving for more. The basket sits there, with its tempting ware: things that I can buy to make me a better lecturer, more knowledgeable or even to just show off on my shelves. Despite knowing that these things are not satisfying in any real way, I still feel these strong emotional pulls. It’s something to do with lack and with wanting.

 

We use this stuff to fill a hole. To make ourselves seem whole. Even though buying some books and CDs could never even come close to fulfil this part of myself.

 

The basket sits there… I may delete it yet…

 

In other news, my shoes completely fell apart. I am going to have to buy some as I have nothing to wear to work! So I am headed off to buy some vegan doc martens. It’s a bit of an expense but better in the long run as they will not fall apart so quickly. I feel weird buying something. I had to buy some clothes for my kid and that felt weird too.

Photo by Michelle-Peters Jones on Flickr

Day 39: Slippage

 

It’s been a while since I posted (I warned you this blog was going to be sporadic!) and things are going ok I guess. This weekend I’ve been hibernating under a huge stack of undergraduate exam marking, and haven’t had time to venture out to be tempted to buy anything. Money has been a bit tight this month too, as I think the impact of Christmas has finally taken its toll on my bank account. So, it’s very good I’m not buying anything!

 

But the concept of slippage keeps coming to mind. My resolve is weakening a little. I bought myself a packet of crisps one night on the way home, as I was reaaaally hungry and hadn’t packed enough food. Instead of learning from that, and packing up more lunch to take to work, it happened again on two more occasions. The fact that spending £1 on crisps isn’t a big deal shouldn’t really have much to do with it – I didn’t want to participate in a transaction, and I had been doing so well not purchasing food or drink outside the house except for my grocery shop. But I worry that it’s the slippery slope… I know my tendencies.

 

The thing is, there are now some things that I need. My shoes have holes in them and I don’t have any other winter shoes. My hair really needs cutting (I only get it done every year or so, and so when it needs doing, it tends to look dire) and it’s starting to make me look really scruffy at work. My son’s trousers are swinging around his ankles they’re so small.

 

It’s so difficult to know what’s a need and what’s a want. It’s so difficult to know what’s just our social conditioning…

 

If I get a hair cut, buy shoes and some new clothes for my son, will I throw caution to the wind and start spending on other stuff too? Is this the slippery slope?

 

I have three weeks of the challenge to go. I was thinking that I’m enjoying the freedom of not buying so much that I might extend my challenge another month. But then my shoes really WILL be in pieces, and my poor boy will look all weird in his super short troos.

 

I guess the main thing is that each purchase should be made mindfully. Each transaction should be an engaged one, where we participate with thought and care and ethics. I need to think about where I want my money to go: whether it’s £50 on a pair of shoes or £1 on a bag of crisps, I need to think about my values as well as value.

 

If I take only one thing away from this challenge, it’s to bring mindfulness into my financial transactions and bring them in line with all the other transactions in my life, where I’m trying to live ethically and wisely.

Day 24: Boredom

 

I’m a bit bored today. Though I’m having a relaxed family day at home – which is something to be very grateful for, I know – there’s an undercurrent of boredom, unhappiness and general ‘meh’. I have no idea why. But I do know I have certain reactions to feeling like this.

 

One of my reactions is to look for things to buy. Today I’ve found myself looking at books on ebay and ogling some yoga wear (not that I really do much yoga!). My other half is going to the Tesco monster in a little bit, because he wants to get some petrol, and the temptation to go with him is huge. I really just seem to crave something to fill the hole.

 

But I’m staying here. Feeling bored. Accepting that this is how I feel right now, but this also will change, as everything does.

 

Photo on pixabay

Day 19: Transference

 

Sorry for the hiatus! I’ve been flat-out busy at work, with what seems like a trillion writing deadlines. But I’m back, to give you a little update on my buy nothing project.

 

So, it’s going really well!  I haven’t bought anything at all – other than the allowed food, travel and bills – and the cravings for ‘things’ are slowly subsiding a bit. I’m also learning to change my day-to-day habits when I do want to have something. Instead of thinking ‘oh, that book sounds interesting, I need to buy it’, I am starting to think ‘I wonder if the library have a copy of that book’. Which is a major shift for me. I’m also streaming using Spotify (free version), instead of buying music. The one exception to all this was a work-related purchase of a Dirty Projectors/Bjork EP (downloaded for £4.99), which was necessary for a book chapter I’m writing on Bjork. Though it’s always interesting to assess what we consider to be ‘necessary’!

 

What I *have* noticed though, is what I’m calling transference. Because I can’t buy anything, my food shop has got more important to me. It’s like that’s a kind of treat. Even if I don’t buy anything particularly special, it still feels quite luxurious just to engage in the act of buying. So I’ve transferred the pleasure of consumption to my food shop.

 

The same has also happened when I’m at the library. I feel the need to take lots of books and DVDs out. As though I’m starving, and need to bulk up with lots of carbs. Books are my carbs. Nom!

 

This all suggests to me that I’m still reliant on things in my life. I still feel the need for new things, and newness generally I think. And transference is giving me that, to some extent.

 

So, I’ve just done a basic food shop, so in the next two weeks I’m going to try to not buy much food (probably just bread and milk, and our veg box) and will also try to not take anything else out of the library. I really want to explore what it feels like to really, really strip back.

 

I wonder if I will ever feel free of searching for something new, something different? I guess this is dukkha – a feeling of unsatisfactoriness. Can stripping back everything give a better sense of being satisfied in the present moment, with our experience exactly as it is? And is it possible for an unenlightened being to feel that sense of satisfaction? Big questions, but perhaps I’ll have a better sense of the answer after this experiment.

 

Artwork ‘Transference’ by Callum Graham

Day 7: The necessity of gratitude

 

This week I have been back to work, and the buy nothing challenge has been a little intensified by being out of the house more. But I’m happy to say that I haven’t bought anything at all! I’ve paid for travel to work but brought my own lunch and snacks.

 

On Wednesday (Day 8 of the challenge) I was busily making my lunch in the morning, and a thought popped into my head. ‘Do I have enough sugar at work?’ I take a big ol’ heaped teaspoon in my tea, and tea is what sustains me through the busy day (albeit a decaf sustenance, I seem to require it anyway!) I put the thought aside, as I figured I was just imagining things. I always have a big pot of sugar on my desk. Then – surprise, surprise – I get to the office, and there’s no sugar in my pot! Argh!

 

The default response is to go buy more. But I’ve been really pleased that I really haven’t bought anything for days, and whilst ‘food’ is permissible, I didn’t want to buy anything that day. So, instead of heading to the University Union shop for a big bag of sugar, I just sat with the thought that I might not have a cup of tea that day. I sat with the thought that many people in the world don’t have the luxury of tea. Or sugar. Or even running water to make tea. These things are real luxuries. Despite wondering how I would get through the day without tea, I knew that I could go home, to a lovely warm house, turn on the tap, fill the kettle and enjoy some lovely sweet tea.

 

By not buying the sugar, I opened up a space for gratitude.

 

I am grateful that I have so much abundance in my life and I realise that my experience is different to many other people across the world.

 

I feel really humbled by this experience. I feel that sometimes we can walk around with so little awareness of all the wonderful things we have. And of course, we can also realise, that actually we don’t NEED these things.

 

Sugar is not a necessity. But for me, gratitude really is.

 

My Buddhist practice helps me to take all of these realisations one step further. I have the figure of Green Tara on my shrine at home. She reminds me that compassion needs to also be met with action. So, being compassionate about people who have very little is only the first step. I need to think about what action I can take to embody that compassion.

 

I need to take my gratitude and my compassion out into the world.

 

 

 

I have decided that I will be making a donation to the Karuna Trust, at the end of my buy nothing period.

Photo by Lauri Andler on wikipedia

Day 6: And the cupboard was bare…

 

**trigger alert: this post may make you want to cook up some tasty vegan food**
 
I’m becoming much more mindful about food use, since I started my little experiment. I’m watching out for wastage, and I’m trying not to buy more than we need. So far this year I haven’t actually had to buy any food, and there’s been plenty in after the Christmas and New Year period. But we’re starting to get through it. And choices are having to be made about what to buy, how to use my food and how to be healthy.

 

Yesterday, I made a big vat of vegetable soup. I put big containers of it in the freezer for times when I’m busy and get in from work a bit later. My woodsman made seitan for the first time (yum!) and we froze two pots of that. That all felt productive and good. When we ate some of the soup for our evening meal, I noticed there were only two slices of bread left. I left these for the woodsman’s breakfast. I couldn’t drop in anywhere on my way back from Full Moon Puja last night because the only place open was T***o… so we had to do with the bread we had. I had some leftover overnight oats with cacoa nibs and pomegranate in the fridge, so I was sorted. It was just the small boy’s breakfast I had to think about.

 

At Christmas, I’d bought three packets of fancy schmancy sweet cereals, as a special treat. So the boy has been eating quite differently to usual. But now all that cereal has been eaten. The cupboard felt really bare. I could feel a rising panic, that maybe by not buying anything I’ve been a bad mum, and that I’m going to starve my child. But at the back of the cupboard there was nearly a full bag of puffed rice cereal (made from 100% brown rice, nothing else) and so I gave that to my son with some raisins mixed in for sweetness. Of course – being six, and wanting the treaty stuff he’s had before – he whinged a bit. But he ate it, and I bet it was pretty delicious. It was healthy and nourishing. I also realised that there were porridge oats, so tomorrow he can have a hot bowl of that, with cinnamon and maple syrup.

 

I actually don’t need to buy anything. At all. We have food. We are the lucky ones.

 

The cupboard had felt bare. I wanted to fill that gap with stuff. Food. Things. This seems to be the pattern. The gaps are unnerving. Like silence – another gap we try to fill – we can grow uncomfortable. Gaps make us have to face things. They make us notice. I need to pay attention to these gaps, and not try to fill them. Meet them in silence, meet them with attention. Perhaps then I’ll notice actually how full my life is. Full of wonderful blessings and simple things.

 

Photo by Hans on Pixabay

Day 5: Accounting

 

Every so often, I want to update you with a little accounting, to show you what I’ve bought (and I guess also what I haven’t). It’s not that I think I’ll be cheating as such, it’s just that the parameters of this experiment still feel a little fluid. And it would be great if anyone has any thoughts on these that they might share in the comments.

So, five days in, here is what I have spent:

• 2 January – Blank cards to allow me to send birthday and thank you cards during the two month period (allowed expense!)
• 3 January – Ticket to Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Awards for my friend’s 40th birthday party (allowed expense!)
• 5th January – Art print for a friend’s wedding gift, which is actually two months late (bad friend! and I have no idea if this is allowed, but it tallies with my word for 2015 ‘Generosity’ so I’m ok with it)

 

I have bought no food, but my other half bought a loaf of bread and some garlic granules for us and I’ve topped up our veg box order with some things we would normally get in T***o. That will arrive on Thursday and is a way smaller amount than I’d normally spent in the Monster-mart. I’ve tried to buy only healthy and necessary food, though I did ‘splash out’ on some baby kale for my partner, who is a green-aholic. I’ve been making soups and getting them in the freezer, which feels in keeping with this project.

 

I have repurposed a number of gifts that I can’t use or already had in my ‘present box’, so I’ve now sorted gifts for everyone in my family for the next two months. That felt really good, also to be that organised in advance (unlike with the wedding gift! Haha!)

My ridiculous list of ‘things I craved, but didn’t buy’:

• pot plant
• lamp for in lounge – didn’t buy, but repurposed
• a whole range of CDs/iTunes downloads, particularly because I’ve been listening to the nominees for Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Awards – listened online more than I would normally do
• a new dog bed for lovely Lucy dog, my whippet/greyhound cross – she has a perfectly serviceable bed, but she’s a princess!
• art supplies for card making – I have plenty of things in the house I can use

 

So, that’s it, warts and all. I’d really like to tell you, the next time that I do a bit of accounting, that I’ve bought nothing at all except food. I’m letting myself have a gentle entry into this little experiment (compassion is king, right?!) but as of now I need to get a bit tougher if I really want to explore what opting out of commercialism really means.

 

 

(Accounting posts will probably be my second post of each day, so don’t worry that I have two posts labelled with the same day! I also will probably miss some days out, being a busy working mum and all!)

Day 5: A lightbulb moment

 

 
When I moved my Christmas tree, the cravings began. It was as though a vacuum had been left by that one act. First it was a pot plant that I felt I ‘needed’ to fill the gap. Then it became a lamp. It was really bugging me. I rearranged some of my ornaments. I tried to ignore the feeling. But the craving kept coming back.

 

Then yesterday I remembered, I had a lamp elsewhere in the house that was bulb-less and that I barely used. I could move that to the spot! Repurposing what I already have is a great idea, environmentally friendly and definitely is one of the benefits of a buy nothing period of time. It allows me to really appreciate all the stuff I already have.

 

But of course, I needed to buy a bulb. Was that against the rules? Could I justify the purchase under my normal food shop? So, I went to the Co-operative to see whether they had one. Because I’ve swapped shopping at the giant Tesco-monster to the teeny tiny Co-op, not surprisingly, they didn’t have one. I started to fret a little. I needed that bulb. Maybe I could go to the hardware store? So we went. It was closed. It’s Sunday. Without the Tesco-monster, I have to wait until Monday. And I could feel the need was NOW.

 

It’s so funny how I seem to crave instant gratification. In our society we’ve become so accustomed to getting things practically at any time of day or night. Supermarket 24 hour opening, Amazon’s instant video or express delivery, get whatever you want, right now. There’s no gap there for mindfulness. It’s like constantly shoveling food into your mouth – you never know when you’re full. If we can just stop for a second, to create a gap, to breathe, we can see if we actually need any more than we already have. Chances are we don’t really need what it is we’re craving.

 

I had not realised just how now-orientated I have become. And that really was a lightbulb moment for me (if you excuse the dreadful pun). I felt like a spoilt toddler, stamping my feet. Though I felt embarrassed, I’m also very grateful to have become aware of this.

 

I went to a friend’s house on the way home and told her about trying to buy the bulb. She went upstairs, found a big box of bulbs and gifted me one, the right size and in full working order. I felt very humbled. I tried to give her some money, but she wouldn’t accept it. I felt gratitude. I think if I’d have picked that bulb off the shelf in Tesco, I wouldn’t have felt any of those things.

 

So now, my house has a lovely lamp-lit corner, where my Christmas tree stood. And for that I am really grateful.

 

Photo by Sputnik Mania on Flickr

A ‘better’ me

I have always had a strong drive to ‘better myself’ and I’m beginning to notice how pervasive it is, and how unhelpful it can be. Yesterday, I found some scrapbooks I made over ten years ago. They were filled with images of happy women, healthy and delicious food, perfect houses and interiors, landscapes of incredible beauty… an imagined life. In amidst this were exercise instructions, morning yoga tips, ways to tighten your bum and slim your legs… This was a scrapbook for a ‘better me’.

In terms of commercialism, this ‘better me’ idea is everywhere, and it’s most prevalent at the turn of the year. I went into Tesco right at the end of December (my last big shop there before I said goodbye to my nemesis for two months). I was amazed by the blatant commercialism around people’s insecurities and perceived ‘weaknesses’. Piles of juicers were being stacked up for sale, next to the dumbells and yoga mats, all at the front of the store so that customers can be immediately confronted with what they’re not and who they would like to be.

In these kinds of shops, our ‘better me’ is right there in the New Year, staring us in the face as we walk through the door. Staring at us from the place where – just two weeks ago – we were tempted with huge cartons of chocolate and crates of wine. Shops like Tesco set the agenda. First, we get ‘treat yourself, it’s Christmas, go on, you deserve it’. Then comes the abdication of any responsibility from the store, with ‘Oh no, what did you do to yourself, eating all that rubbish?! Here are all the things that you can buy to try and make yourself a better person’.

Don’t get me wrong, I am ALL for healthy eating and treating myself well. But not in this way, motivated by a continual need to do more and buy more.

Within the pages of my scrapbook, I had been yearning for something – this ‘better me’, a more polished version of myself, is essentially something that doesn’t exist. This ‘better me’ ideal, as pushed through supermarkets, the media, and particularly aggressively in women’s magazines, is a poorer me. It’s a me who is anxious, and craving, and who can never be satisfied.

I am who I am right now, and Buddhism teaches us to start where we our. Our current experience is enough. Searching for something to fill this sense of unsatisfactoriness is futile and looking in the supermarket to find it will only bring more unhappiness.

So, I threw those scrapbooks in the bin. I looked myself in the mirror and smiled at myself. With a sense of compassion and acceptance, I am already a better me.

Beautiful artwork by Marie on Flickr

Day 2: Craving, craving, craving!

Oh my lord, this is going to be tough!

So since I started not being able to buy anything, there has been an ever evolving list in my head of stuff I need to buy. I use that word ‘need’, as my mind has been telling me just how much I ‘need’ the yellow Habitat Tommy desk lamp or a potplant to put in the bare space created by my Christmas tree being removed. Clearly I have gone mad. In order to understand this madness I have started a notebook to write down all these needs, and then at the start of March I’m going to look at them again and see whether those needs still exist! I had no idea I was such a consumer, that just removing the option to buy has made me so obsessed with acquiring stuff.

I had to go into town today to pay some cheques in, and I did a bit of vicarious spending through my son, who had some book tokens to spend. But myself, I only bought the blank cards for me to make birthday and thank you cards. That’s it. No sale things, nothing else, no CDs (oh my word, I had to literally drag myself past HMV, away from the FKA Twigs album which I haven’t yet managed to buy… ). My other half bought us some lunch in town, and I felt a bit guilty about it on two counts. First, I should have been a bit more prepared and brought something with me (or gone out after lunch). Second, he bought us fries and an apple pic from McD*****s. Holy vegan cow, that wasn’t a good ethical choice!

There is very little vegan option in our very small city, but still, I’m sure we could have done better than that. Lesson learned, and am reminding myself that it’s only day 2… I’ll settle into it more and get more prepared as time goes on. Generosity to self needed!

On the plus side, the sparsity of my house – after a good declutter and de-Christmassing – is really giving me a lovely feeling of calm. I like having less stuff. It’s quite liberating already.

Photo by Helena on pixabay