Why do we need things?

I walked around my house the other day and decided to take note of things I actually used and needed. I went into each room, looking into the cupboards, shelves, and everything in between. What I realised is that, there’s just an abundance of things that didn’t have a significant purpose within my home.

This got me thinking.

“Why do we have so much stuff”?

Now a simple answer would suggest that it’s a simple case of acquiring items over the years and moving to different locations which would naturally allow for the accumulation of ‘stuff’, but I personally believe there’s a bigger reason hiding underneath.

For quite a while now I’ve been questioning the functions and common operations of our society and have put forth a very simple question.

Why?

That simple question helped start my journey towards having a better understanding as to why we own so much stuff.

Let’s start at the very beginning.

Birth.

When we’re born we don’t have a complete grasp of the world around us, well duh, babies don’t know shit. True, but they do have a basic desire to seek out what they need, for example;

Milk, love, and a safe environment.

Milk covers food and water.

Love covers social interaction.

A safe environment covers shelter and warmth.

All these things are just the basic needs of our lives pretty much.

So I propose this question “If a baby only seeks out what it really needs from birth where does the desire to acquire unneeded material possessions”?

Environment.

I don’t think it’s a surprise to anyone that our current social landscape loves the idea of materialistic possessions; it's pretty much the backbone of a capitalist regime. Now I'm not against capitalism or to be honest, I'm not really in a position to break down and discuss that sort of topic but what I do want to touch on is the negative outcome that stems from some of the attributes that capitalism offers. I think the main issue comes from the exploitation of the human desire to want a better life and you know what, fair enough. Who wouldn't want to live and have an awesome life? I think that's a fine thing to want to strive for, the problem occurs when we are convinced of things that we don't need, and the more times we are successfully convinced the more accustomed we become. We've literally been trained to buy things we don't need and it starts from birth.

Now most people would say that's just how the economy works, people buy, people sell, money goes around and around and keeps things flowing. That's correct but nothing comes for free.

I feel like what we gain from the accessibility from goods and services we lose in our freedom of choice from forces that's main goal is to invoke forced consumption. Capitalism benefits from our consumption but we ultimately lose because of it.

It's honestly a pretty sad and disappointing outcome, something that promises to bring us happiness and prosperity in our lives actually in the long term does us more harm.

So what can we do about it?

The bleak answer would be nothing but I prefer to live on the side of optimism! For most of us, we can't change our environment, that requires a lot of convincing and external factors that a majority of people wouldn't be possible. What we can focus on is our own personal relationship with obtaining goods and services and develop strategies to avoid pointless consumption.

Tune in next week for part 2 of my "why do we need things" series and be sure to follow my page on Instagram @kitta.brand