The Psychology of Spending | Part 4: The Heart of the Matter
This is where it’s going to get personal.
When I was growing up, I would associate happiness and success with the collection of things… new things. As a child, my father would tell me something I now know was meant to frame my thinking as an adult. “Be careful about finding happiness in things, son.” I would say, “Yes, Sir,” as I continued to play with my new toy. I’m willing to bet that he could almost see his words going in one of my ears and out the other.
Fast forward to my adult years and having friends, and like a ghost, his words haunted my mind. Why? I was watching my friends and siblings race off to the mall on pay day to buy the newest pair of shoes, clothes, or thing. I remember the happiness on their faces as they could show me their newest purchase. You couldn’t tell them anything about anything! They were on cloud 9.
Yes…that’s right…I’m awesome…look at my new stuff…
There is nothing wrong with feeling good about yourself. But should that feeling be anchored in things external to you?
This became a reoccurring trend. Work, payday, shop, party…rinse and repeat. In hindsight, what I find interesting is that in just one week, the last new thing had lost it’s luster. There was no more happiness associated with it. In fact, it was now considered old…just another thing that would be recycled in the ever growing collection of stuff.
As I am sure we have all experienced, we had those late-night conversations where deep thoughts and emotions were laid bare. What became apparent is that they were not happy. They were not happy with life, their jobs, their relationships, and themselves. Although they would not specifically state it, the accumulation of new stuff made them feel good [the dopamine hit].
At the root of this is that we compare ourselves to those we are told we should admire. The ‘Stars,’ ‘Models,’ the ‘Rich,’ the ‘Well-To-Do.’ Every second of everyday, via advertising, we are shown an idea of what our aspirations should be. At every moment in these people’s lives they are portrayed as perfect. Always in the newest clothes, in perfect make-up, living in a mansion, traveling the world, people ‘love’ them…they are living a dream, right?
The point is…that is not the life we are living.
Implicitly, we are conditioned to believe that if you are not living as close as possible to ‘Stars’, we are somehow failing. BOOM…the self-esteem tanks.
In 2015, American and British researchers from Stanford University, UCLA and Nottingham Trent University conducted a study concerning the connection between shopping addiction and depression and low self-esteem in women.
Can you guess what they found?
Yea… you’re correct. The study found that shopping was used as a means to escape negative thinking about one’s self. Specifically, women with extrovert personalities and a proclivity to seek social acceptance and adulation, were more likely struggle with shopping addiction.
Let’s stop. I am not saying that we all collectively suffer from a DSM-V-aligned psychological disorder. However, there is a something that exists at the heart of the matter here. Low self-esteem.
In 2017, the University of Bologna in Italy conducted a study about the “Role of Self-esteem and Fear of Negative Evaluation in Compulsive Buying.” In the findings, there is a key element I believe is prudent to quote here:
“…appearance-related items (e.g., clothes, shoes, and status symbol objects) are often used as symbols in the process of self-completion “because they show others who you are.” Some individuals may feel a chronic state of incompleteness in their self-definitions and may experience the urge to buy objects linked to their desired self-definitions despite the fact that they have purchased too much, resulting in serious problems for their life.”
Ref: Biolcati, R. (2017, April 18). The Role of Self-esteem and Fear of Negative Evaluation in Compulsive Buying. Retrieved August 08, 2020, from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2017.00074/full
We are damaged.
Sadness will always be the result if you’re measuring yourself against that which is unrealistic
We collectively don’t believe that we measure up to the expectation of what happiness or success is. And the only way to achieve any semblance of this is to spend our hard earned money on stuff that those people we admire have. Ouch.
I was a teen when my father told me, “You are not your possessions.” I touched upon this in Part 2 of this series that dealt with the dopamine hit. I admittedly lacked the awareness and intellect to understand the gravity of those words at the time. But I damn sure get it now.
I would ask you to meditate on the words my father shared with me.
You are not your possessions. In explaining this to those close to me, I ask the following question: “How often do you get in your car and call yourself BMW/Dodge/Subaru/Lexus?”…”Hi, I’m BMW.” Sounds pretty silly, right?
Your car is a thing, as is your new sweater, shoes, house, necklace, ring, etc. You are not those things, you possess those things. In fact, the only value they have is what you place on them.
I am not here to tell you who or what you are. Only you can come to that conclusion. However, if we are going to break the cycle of needing new stuff to make us happy we have to understand what is going on.
Some people are stuck in a cycle that never ends. They are unhappy, they have bought into the idea that happiness is what is shown to us in the media, we spend our money in an attempt to emulate what we see, the allure fades from this new purchase, we are unhappy again. The cycle repeats.
It’s time to stop and come to the realization that you are trying to spend away something that you need to deal with inside. If having everything really made people happy, have you ever asked why so many people that actually have everything need so much therapy, abuse drugs, or are in toxic relationships [looking at you Hollywood]?
At the heart of the matter is you. The road to financial independence, in my opinion, starts with coming to terms with things in your mind and then making a conscious decision to stop just being a consumer.
Come to terms with yourself first. The money part will be easy.
