Day 287: Lessons learned from “Buy Nothing New Month”

I really enjoyed adding this to my not buying any clothes challenge. Even when I did go shopping to buy something ‘not new’ such as antique shopping, I didn’t end up buying anything (not being able to buy clothes severely impaired this as well). Overall I feel better for it. It has made me realise that money after all, is just another object. Material possessions don’t necessarily add to the richness of our life experiences. Representing our experiences with things seems like it’s the easy way out. Experiences can be turned into more meaningful objects such as memories, art, photography or letters. Material ‘things’ simply sit on a shelf as a memory of a purchase, meaningful representations evoke emotions and cause us to reflect on why that moment in our lives shaped us into who we are today.

I only bought 2 things that were new this month and they will forever hold special significance to me. The first was the program from when I went to see Mary Poppins the Musical. It was a great show and the program is not the sort of thing I could simply go back and get when the month was over. I love seeing professional and amateur theatre and I get programs to remind me of the wonderful experience that I had. The second was a witch’s hat for a costume. A few weeks ago my friend Rachel and I performed a duet together for a showcase. We sang ‘For Good’ from Wicked, hence needing the hat for Elphaba. We had been working on it for months and finally getting to perform it was a dream come true. I bought the hat home with me (Rachel, if you are wondering where it went), and it is currently in my dress up box. I don’t know if I will ever need it again, but it will always remind me of one of my greatest triumphs (if you would like to see out performance, you can watch it here).

Even though these things I bought hold significance to me, I know that if I had to I could let them go. They are special reminders, but they cannot replace the awe I felt seeing Scarlet Strallen on the stage at the Capitol Theatre. Or that intoxicating moment of freedom I found singing my heart out on that stage in front of people I love. And it couldn’t possibly replace the friendship I gained by singing with Rachel.

So in the end I guess it’s just about being smart about what we buy, new or not. If it’s new think about its origins, is it the product of a corporation treats it’s workers like slaves? Did millions of hectares of rainforest need to be cleared just so I could buy a silicone spatula? Even if it’s old, second hand or even free, thinking to yourself ‘Do I really need this?’ In these conscious decision I believe we have be smarter about what we have and our choices will be more fulfilling.

If you would like to join in next year or learn more there are links in my last post. Or just head to their website: http://www.buynothingnew.com.au/.

Zoe x

Day 200: The First Delimma

This is my first big challenge so far. Here’s the break down…

My work is giving us $50 worth of clothes (including underwear, shoes and accessories) to wear instead of our uniform for the next month and a half. I have until the end of August to get the clothes.

My response:

CLOTHES. FOR. FREE!

I was more than a little excited. then I was like:

“but does this go against my not buying clothes?”

Here are the problems:

• the clothes are not the best quality
• cheap and I’m pretty sure not ethically produced
• I am allowed to still wear my uniform, so i don’t have to get them
• It’s only for a short period of time, so I have to decide now

I talked to my parents and my mum suggested it was OK because I’m not actually buying them.

So, I have come up with a compromise:

• Carefully examine wardorbe for what I NEED (there are a few t-shirts that need to go)
• ONE-IN-ONE-OUT: give me an opportunity to get rid of more stuff because now i will have something to wear instead

What do you think? Am I going against my cause and being a hypocrite (strong words, I know)?

Or do you have a better way that I could do it?

Zoe

Day 190: Richard Glover articulates my mission.

(please read the following article, it is excellent) 

The Drawers are Full, it’s Time For a Back Rub

Illustration: Simon Letch.

According to economists, Australians can never get it right. For years, we spent every dollar that came into our pockets, together with a fair few dollars that we thought might one day come into our pockets.

This, we were told, was appalling behaviour, leaving Australia with one of the world’s worst savings rates. Really we should have a good hard look at ourselves.

Now, suddenly, the spending has stopped. Our arms have become short and our pockets deep. Arise, ye nation of tight-arses, cheapskates and misers. Still, amazingly, we are doing the wrong thing. You there - the one with the old pair of jeans, the clapped-out fridge and the slightly pongy mattress, it’s your fault that the poor old retailers are laying off staff and closing down stores. You’re not spending enough.

Everyone seems to give the same reasons for the downturn. We’ve stopped spending because we are anxious about the world economy, anxious about the carbon tax, maybe even about the ability of China to continue booming.

There’s probably truth in all these explanations but I’d like to raise another possibility. Maybe, just maybe, we’ve all started to understand the limited pleasure that can be gained from buying truckloads of cheap crap.

This is something that takes a while to learn; maybe even a few decades. For past generations of Australians, retail therapy wasn’t ever really an option. Wages were limited and prices were high. Credit cards didn’t exist. For most people, there was no alternative to saving up for something: something that, by the time it arrived, was desperately needed rather than momentarily wanted.

Over a few decades that started to change. Credit cards became commonplace, alongside reverse mortgages and widespread consumer credit. Wages, at least for most people, rose. And, most crucially, prices fell as a wave of cheap goods arrived from China.

At first it was intoxicating. You could buy a battery-operated drill, for example, without really thinking about it. Even a decade before, it would have cost half a week’s wages. On a trip to Bunnings, avarice came without much of a price tag. A ten-pack of masking tape, two cheap hammers, a tape measure, a torch: final bill less than $50.

The same thing was happening at stores such as Target: socks became so cheap it was pointless to darn the odd hole. People didn’t go in to buy a single shirt, they now bought clothes in handfuls.

All good fun, of course, for a while. Then, about 10 years on, you realise that your house is full of cheap hammers whose handles broke long ago, drills that don’t work, tape measures that jam and enough masking tape to mummify yourself and all the kids.

Every time you go into the laundry to find the Baygon (required because the cockroaches love living in the back of the cheap microwave you bought for the kitchen bench-top), you find yourself picking through this tangled mess of crap. Why did you buy it? When do you ever use any of this stuff?

And isn’t there something a bit immoral about all these earthly resources being expended on things you’ve hardly used?

Every second weekend is now spent throwing out the stuff you spent the previous decade buying. Given the increasingly ruinous tip fees, this proves more expensive than buying it in the first place.

Do we really want 10 pairs of cheap pants? Or would a couple of good pairs - one for best - give us more pleasure? It certainly worked for our grandparents’ generation. Wouldn’t it be better to have one hammer, beautifully made, that you could actually find - the rest of the garage, shed or third-drawer-down not being stuffed with rubbish?

This is the shift that, perhaps, is starting to happen. We’re not shy of spending money, it seems to me, but we’re changing what we want to spend it on. People are still hungry for experiences. They’ll spend money on good food to share with friends, on a holiday to Vietnam, on a massage or a bungy jump. They are less keen on objects: the show-off car, the cupboard full of clothes, yet another cheap appliance to add to an already crowded kitchen bench.

Note, for example, the way service stalls - fingernail salons or Chinese massage booths - are taking over retail space in our malls. Or the way we seem happy to pay professionals to wash our cars: something that just 10 years ago would have been considered foolishly spendthrift. So, it’s not always money that’s the problem. We’re happy to have the car clean and our shoulders rubbed; we just don’t want the boot of that clean car loaded with stuff.

I know this doesn’t really help the likes of David Jones or Just Jeans. What are they meant to do? Set up a bungy-jumping station on the outside of the Market Street store? License the staff in ladies’ shoes to start providing neck rubs?

But for the rest of us, it may be good news. After 20 years of trolley-filling, we’ve learnt our lesson about the limited pleasures afforded by a whole pile of cheap, imported crap.

And that is how he summaries everything I believe and have been trying to do. He’s my new favourite writer. You can find his column in the Spectrum lift out of the Sydney Morning Herald or online here.

Day 184: Fixing a Broken Image

Going further on from my last post about satisfaction, I have really been mulling over the issue of body image. It just keeping popping up in popular culture and despite the fact that we try to avoid it, it is an epidemic in the western word. There is no denying that there is high prevalence of body image issues among women. However, with the emergence of social sub group treads such as metro-sexual etc (I’m not going to go into the different types, you get the general idea), this is increasingly becoming an issue for males. So now we are facing to increasing issue that now affects both genders. Marketing is increasingly playing into this. I don’t know if you have seen the latest dove ads for their men’s skin care range. If not click on the link below and check it out to get the gist of what I’m talking about. Anyway these ads are no doubt clever in their approach, but what does this mean for men and the issue of body issue in general?

When I look at what/who we consider beautiful, there is no doubt there tends to be trends towards certain looks. At the moment in fashion I hold the belief that anything goes. Form the 1920’s to the 1990’s the hipster/indie movement (although recently in the media has been discussed as “dead”) has revolutionised fashion in popular culture. Regardless of fashion and trends, I propose that we don’t wish to live without these images of perfection. How have I come to this conclusion? Allow me to elaborate….

Today the media holds the most of the power; with the evolution of social media we are slowly gaining the upper hand. Recent examples included the more useful trends, (opposed those that are not useful, eg. viral marketing strategies and YouTube sensations), of world news spreading via social media rather than through conventional television and radio and print news mediums. Another would be the increasing occurrence of the media reporting on the happenings of social media. Several examples I can think of include planking which was recently on the nightly news here and our large regional news paper reporting on several Facebook groups created to do with Newcastle University which I attend. Apart from the fact that most of these stories seen to be human interest pieces, I can’t help but wonder if social media is a better representation of society than the media. However I’m not here to discuss that issue (maybe another time).

The media in combination with social media controls much of how we view the world. Effective campaigns now involve target both. If we really truly wanted to change the world and fix the issue of body image now would be the perfect time. We have everything at our finger tips, so why haven’t we? Ok, let’s image a world where advertising truly represented society. No perfect ideals, just reality. Could you face a world like that? It seems like its woven into human nature to want things that we can’t achieve. We like to look at things that are beautiful, regardless if they are realistic or not. I think deep down, we like seeing those skinny girls on cat walks.

I will digress with a story. I was recently in Queensland, which is another state in Australia a few hundred kilometres north or where I live. I went for a holiday with a few friends from school. We were watching something on a fashion channel, a high fashion show mostly of Australian designers. It then went to another cat walk for designer swimwear. The thing all of us remarked on wasn’t the clothes (although there was some discussion), but the difference between the fashion and the swimwear models. The comparison was stark. We all agreed that the swimwear models, with actual boobs and hips were much more attractive to watch than the high fashion models. I think we found it satisfying to see young women, like us that were somewhat realistic. So what does this mean for our ideals of beauty?

It’s all well and good to order those skinny catwalk models to go each a sandwich or something because we all know that what they are doing isn’t healthy (for us or them). But I think what we need to realise is what people think they want to see and their perceptions of beauty and body image aren’t going to go away over night. We can’t remove this from society completely. Sex sells and I don’t think advertisers are going to give that up over night either.

So what can we change? I think it’s fair to say no matter how clique, it starts with us. We need to change our perceptions of ourselves and not be sucked into the mass marketing of beauty. Why not start by saying no to sexualised images of women and men and especially children. Be extremely objective when viewing or listening to anything presented to you in the media. Think about what message it’s trying to convey. I don’t mean start a conspiracy theory about event or not believe what they tell you because some of it is the truth. Seek out unbiased (or as unbiased as you can find) information. If it’s an issue your interested in find out the “real story”.

Finally, more specifically when it comes to body image, acknowledge that everyone as an ideal. The idea is not to remove the ideal, but to have it as close to reality as possible. And the most sensible advice of course is to be healthy in your mind and in your body. Remember body image not only reflects how you feel about yourself, but how you let ideas and the influences of other inform how you see yourself.

To finish, I’d like to say as someone who has struggled with body image, it is difficult to deal with. If you can’t do it alone get friends and family around you to support you. Wether you are a man or a woman in any situation, having a positive body image will almost always have a possible impact on your satisfaction with life and how happy you perceive yourself to be.

Zoe x

P.S. I’ll be aiming for one post a week from now on.

An Open Letter to Young Women of the World

Dear beautiful ladies and girls of the world,

Are you unhappy with everything about yourself? Do you pluck, squeeze, purge or starve your body to fit a certain image in your mind. Have you ever stopped to think about how that image in your mind came to be? When did it begin to become an important issue in you life? Was it when you hit puberty? All of a sudden everyone else cared how they looked, so you thought that you had to also. Was it when your mum told you; “Honey, you are getting a little bigger. Maybe you should loose some weight?” Was it when those guys at school you snicker and yelled things at you when you walk in the gate at school. You tried to pretend that you didn’t care, but every time you were alone, you would run over their words in your head over and over until you cried. Did it start when you looked around and saw all the ‘beautiful’ women in the world? Tall, long legged, slim. Did it start when you saw the people who wore the clothes that you wanted to wear? Bones poking through their skin, some what reminiscent of African children during a horrible food crisis. 

Did you then grow older and think to yourself these images of women are not realistic? Or did you grow older and think, I can be like them all I have to do is diet, not eat, wear the same clothes etc. Did you grow older and see other girls hurting on the inside, completely dissatisfied with who they are. Prostitutes to the worlds every whim, trying so desperately to affix themselves over the template in their minds. Or do you looked in the mirror, see yourself and think “that image in my mind, I can never ever be a skinny, smart, talented or beautiful”. Do you slip into a deep sadness in your mind, thinking over and over about why you can never measure up? Do you seek out pleasures to dull the pain? Too many drinks on a night out, one night stands every weekend, little thrills, but the thoughts always return.

Did you know there is hope? You are beautiful. No matter how clique it sounds, there is beauty in everyone. Wether you have a realistic body image or not, you must fight against everything that tells you that you as a woman is not good enough with out these external versions of beauty.

Don’t go with the crowd. Because chances are, they are not the majority (even if it seems like they are). Dress how you want to dress. Take what you like and make it your own style. Dress out of respect for yourself, because then everyone can see on the outside how you should be treated.

Don’t worry about love. Be happy with your relationship status. Be a good judge of character, and don’t be blinded by love. If he doesn’t treat you with respect and if you don’t respect him, leave.

And that image in your mind? Not matter how it was formed, assess whether it represents reality. Is it reminiscent of cat walk models or of how you look right now?

Are you depressed, feeling continuously low in sprits, starving yourself or binge eating, abusing alcohol or drugs to dull the pain? Seek help. Call a number of a help line, call your mum, a friend or anyone you trust so they can support you.

Finally, look on the inside. Identify who you are. The good and maybe the not so good. Be honest in the way that you present yourself and don’t hide behind a mask. Love every aspect of who you are. Then once you have done this, look beyond yourself for others you can help.

From,

Another young woman facing all the same challenges that you are.

Day 174: Satisfaction.

We can so easily fall into the trap of saying:

‘Why would I pay X amount of dollars for this when I could get it at Kmart/Golo/other discount store for half the price?’

Now I know it’s true that some things in this world are hideously over priced for example some luxury clothing brands. So I have decided that not only does my mindset need an overhaul, so does my wardrobe. So the plan for next year will probably be something like this… instead of going nuts and buying a million things that I want after not buying anything for a year, I will again set a budget. Probably not as tight as the one for this year, but something similar. And instead of going to the shops and seeing something I want and doing a needs/wants analysis, I will seek out what I need. Weather it be in op shops, online or through friends. Yes friends! I have come upon the epiphany that between my friends be probably have enough clothing to clothe a small African nation. So what not if I need something borrow it from them? Ok back on track… so I am going to me more conscious of where I buy my clothes. It really brings to the front of your mind what you value and in an increasing globalised world we have to knowledge to know the impact of our actions. For example; is it morally right to purchase a t-shirt that I know was probably produced by people who are the poorest of the poor under slavery conditions? Especially when I know as a person living in the western world that I can afford to pay the extra money to make sure my purchase supports small business around the world and is more sustainable for the environment.

I can honestly say that so far, there has never been I point where I have regretted doing this just because I didn’t think I could live without a certain piece of clothing. And I don’t think that any piece of clothing that I could have bought would have improved my life or happiness in any way.

I read a great review on a book called The Age of Absurdity by Michael Foley (review by Conrad Walters) in Spectrum which is a pull out section in the Sydney Morning Herald. Apparently in his book he suggests that that the pursuit of happiness through success and prosperity are not the keys to happiness. Instead he suggests that contentment is the key. Not only do I now want to read this book, but I couldn’t agree more. But is the solution that simple? Can contentment really be the solution to all our modern woes? Let’s think for a minute shall we? Contentment by definition (mine and Sir Oxford’s) is being happy and satisfied with what you have. What drives a modern consumerist society? Dissatisfaction! People wanting and gaining more because they are not satisfied with themselves, their possessions, their relationships, their station in life. I’m not saying however that people must be satisfied but their position in life and in society, but when that’s the only thing that drives you, getting to the top, being the best and being admired by all, that is when it becomes a problem. Why is it a problem? Because if all you strive for is the top than you will never and I mean never, be satisfied with anything less. This then pushes people who do get to the top to always want more. They don’t stop to enjoy the view from the top because they can’t, they have a stiff neck from always looking up, and some I would say also wouldn’t want to. This would mean that they would have to face their dissatisfaction, forced to deal with the past, forced to deal with their motives make an assessment of whether what they are do is right or wrong.

Now I can admit my bias to you here and say I’m an upper middle class white female with barely and year and a half of university education under my belt, but all the education in the world can’t teach you these things. You have to realise for yourself what it means to be satisfied with every single aspect of your life. Money, possessions, relationships, your body, emotions, intellect and even your own happiness (what if you aren’t happy with your happiness?). All these areas in life you can be dissatisfied with and what does it do? It causes you to want more.

So, what have we concluded? Well, I know I use general examples, but someone who is always striving for the top doesn’t have to be a millionaire, it could be your co-worker, spouse or should I hazard to mention, you. Re-assess your motives. Why do you do anything that you do? What drives you to be the best you can be? Is it because you want to help people or is it the money? And most importantly assess what you are unhappy with. As we have discussed, the root of this will be dissatisfaction.

So how do we change? The old phase “give me courage to change the things I can, and to accept the things I cannot and wisdom to know the difference” pretty much sums it up. Sure there will be things in life that you will be unhappy with and maybe you can change those. But for the things you can’t change, look at the world and all it problems and be satisfied, joyful and celebrate with what you do have. And gain wisdom so you can know the difference, it maybe a simple as knowing the difference between a want and a need, but it’s a step in the right direction.

I hope your week is much happier than the last, not because you gained more but because you realised what you do have is more than you ever need.

Zoe x

Day 170: “But it’s FREE!”

Who isn’t a sucker for something free? Due to me being such a stinge or ‘tight’ as some might say, I adore free stuff. For example this is my free bookcase that I got from the side of the road a few weeks ago.

We also have a thing called council clean up, when everyone put out their crap on the side of the road and the council comes and picks it up. They usually choose a terrible time of year when it rains for a few days. This then destroys the chipboard furniture (much to my dismay) and soaks the couches straight through. Being a sucker for anything free means that I will regularly slow down while driving to examine the piles of crap on the side of the road. I will tut at the wonderful things that people throw away and dream of the day when I can furnish my home with things found on the side of the road. 

Now I have decent self control and I mange to drive past most of the stuff without stopping (unless I’m looking for something in particular). However all the piles again reminds me of all that stuff that we have cluttering out homes and lives. It reminds me of how easy it is to accumulate stuff. 

I was doing a final clean out of my old room and for the first time felt distress over the fact that I was throwing away perfectly useful stuff (well, at least in my mind). The distress wasn’t due to the level of usefulness of the crap, but more the fact that my stuff that I just didn’t want anymore was going straight to land fill to rot for a few thousand years. I could take comfort in the knowledge that I was recycling and giving away more than what was headed for land fill. It was just another reminder that in the end everything thing that we have, all the “stuff” will eventually end up in the bin. It’s that instant feeling of regret that quitely whisers:

‘If only you didn’t buy that, if only…’

So my main point; Be careful with the “stuff”. Whether it was free or cost a million dollars, think about where it will end up and who it will impact. Celebrate the stuff that you get for free that you actually need. Like bookcases and second hand clothing from your friends. Finally think about the complete journey, how that product got to you and where it will go when its broken and dead. 

Zoe x