Day 3

Today was Day 3. I feel like my wants and needs are getting a lot easier to decipher. While at work, I see a lot of clothes that I want, but now that buying the item is no longer an option, I don't waste energy or time thinking about it after the initial feeling of want. In the past, when something caught my eye, this would be a possible thought process: "That's cute. I think I want it.*check tag* how much? *calculate employee discount* is it worth it? what could I wear it with? when can I try it on? and so on. Personally, that is a lot of thought to put into a thing.

Now that I know in advance I'm not going to buy these things, I stop considering them all together. I'm learning there is a great difference between liking something and wanting it. I can like the design on a new shirt and stand back and appreciate it, be content it exists in the universe, and move on. It's greatness. Being able to say "no" really gives me a sense of power about the whole thing.
When so much in our society is screaming at us as consumers to spend, it would be impossible to comprehend it all, to succumb to doing everything every company or brand wanted us to do. We are so bombarded with marketing strategies, advertisements, deals, and steals, the only way to make sense of it all, to survive here, is by filtering the information..we then become preoccupied by filtering, constantly filtering and filing and organizing these products that are for sale, that someone is telling us we need. If we lived without a filter, we would have no control of our lives at all, we would all be in extreme debt, and we would have more stuff than we know what to do with. The frightening thing is, people do live this way. I see people like this everyday at the mall, in restaurants and on the road. Somewhere along the way, things that we need as humans, who have been doing just fine without a Snuggy for a couple million years, got mixed up with the things we want.

By pushing these wants aside, I'm becoming more aware of what my body needs. I spent my lunch break sitting outside on the hot concrete, soaking up the warmth of the sun. It was a great relief just sitting there, not expending energy, refusing to bear the burden of big business for a while.