“If we live like there is no tomorrow, we will create just that-no tomorrow.” Jim Merkel: Radical Simplicity: Small Footprints on a Finite Earth.

This blog is not only a catalog of better choices for a more sustainable lifestyle; it is also the record of my struggle to embody those choices. Jim Merkel’s book is a map of what to do to get to a life lived equitably, which is, to say, in support of the health of the Earth and her peoples, and in the care of the Earth’s resources. But how is that expressed in my very unimportant life?

Well, two days ago I stopped shopping. I have not bought anything for two days. Now this may seem like a very small thing, but in the doing of it, I realized how habituated I am, and have always been, to shopping. Please understand that I am not a binge shopper; my purchases have always been very modest: a second hand book, a piece of used clothing (https://www.genesisshelter.org/), some art supplies, groceries.

But my need to shop everyday, my expectation of shopping is unrelenting! My mother was a professional buyer, and I was taught early on how to shop well, which is to say getting the most quality for the least money; and I taught my daughter these skills. Buying stuff every day is as natural for me as breathing…and as unexamined!

However, at my late stage of life, I find that I really need very little. So shopping becomes what it is for me and most of my friends: a way to entertain ourselves; a mode of anxiety relief; a distraction for loneliness. I am, of course, describing a particularly middle class (and richer) lifestyle, though poorer people are also being impelled toward buying things that they don’t need. The act of shopping assures every one of us our place in our commodified society. It also guarantees that the powerful corporations and their owners will get richer, and we will get poorer! Resisting the urge to shop is a way to slowly but surely change the balance of power, by husbanding our financial resources and denying the wealthy our money.

So we will see how long I can go without buying something that I feel I “need,” but which isn’t really a necessity.  How long before I can’t resist scratching the itch? Wish me luck!

Meanwhile, if you are interested, check out one person who went without shopping for a year! :

and some more radical ways of non-shopping:

https://www.facebook.com/RobGreenfield/