Stop buying so many things! Try spending more money on impressions.
It may seem that impressions are just empty fun and nothing more. In fact — they are worth it! We experience true happiness for the first time when we experience impressions ourselves, and for the second time when we tell friends about them.
But let's not be so one-sided. Things tend to wear out over time. For example, you like the carpet in the living room. But what if it has fallen into disrepair — will you buy a new one? At the same time, the first few times you will admire it with special trepidation and feel incredibly happy. But after some time, this carpet, which recently caused a storm of emotions, will turn into just a carpet, an ordinary interior detail.
Try to remember when was the last time an ordinary piece of furniture, with which you have been together for several years, brought you to an indescribable delight? Psychologists call it addiction. Economists — a decrease in utility. The rest call it marriage.
But there must be another reason why we tend to buy those things that have not yet had time to disappoint us. For materialists, especially for materialists, the fact of buying a new thing is boring. However, they also tend to waste money and get involved in credit problems. Perhaps this is because they believe that the purchase of goods will give them happiness and bring significant life changes. And here it is! The same feeling when desire is better than possession.
Thoughts about acquiring something give much more happiness than the actual possession of this thing.
Thinking about buying a product provides an instant rush of happiness and an increase in mood, especially for materialistic people. While the positive emotions associated with the fact of acquisition are short-lived. After the purchase, you experience happiness, but it is less intense than it was before.
Impressions really make us happier than things — even at the time of purchase.
Do not confuse one fact that paying for a product brings less satisfaction than the desire to find it with another — that buying things makes us sad. It is difficult to argue that shopping therapy (when shopping = getting out of a bad mood) does not work. Most studies show that a timely shopping trip can cheer you up quite well. It turns out the following: shopping therapy is everything that happens BEFORE the receipt for the paid product appears. But then why get into debt if you can get a noble portion of happiness without making a purchase?!
In addition, it is worth paying attention to one more fact. Retail space is usually occupied by two types of stores. The former offer the lowest prices and attract low-income consumers. The second — expensive and luxurious — to lure visitors. And what tricks sellers don't go to to get us to buy more and more, and also to think that we made this decision on our own.
When we go to the store not for what we need, but for what we just would like to buy, this is the shopping that makes us really happy.
Photo: Cristiano Betta’s
