The Idle Mind

December 17, 2020

Spent this afternoon driving around town by myself; no music, no company. Only with my own thoughts. For quite some time, I know that I haven’t been thinking really well. Throughout the month I have made some bad decisions that could have been prevented if I were thinking more thoroughly. I even almost bought another iPhone, even though the one I’m using right now still serves me well. In this essay, I’m going to talk about our desire to buy the things that we don’t need.

I have been in a purchasing streak lately, spending a good amount of money to buy stuff that I don’t really need in the long term. To be fair, my current business right now does not need a lot of money to keep running. At least that’s what I tell myself every time I try to overcome buyer’s remorse. But I can’t lie anymore that I have not been mindful at all in most of my decisions lately.

It probably stems from lack of sleep, and a lot of distractions. Youtube, LINE, Instagram, Twitter, and even Tokopedia (I got some stuff to sell there), has got me bombarded with information. I almost always wanted it that way. I lost my good old habit of not opening my phone until around 11 AM. I guess I thought I had changed for the better and ironically losing that habit. My lack of sleep is even worse. I could not sleep before 0.30 AM anymore, bad habit is the only explanation.

The Unchaining

So I put up my iPad for sale. Even though I kinda need it to read materials for OSCE (medschool exam stuff), I still want to break free from this ownership for something that’s been distracting me. I actually put up my phone for sale too, and someone actually ordered it. I canceled the order because I thought I took it too far, finding a new phone to work with will probably cost me more.

“The things you own, end up owning you”

My possessions had owned me, distracting me to insomnia. I can’t lie anymore, these things have to go away from my life. I need to rebuild the way I live with my possessions.

This materialism is everywhere, I think people already know that. But through my experience, I see it taking control of our lives more than I thought. It controls our life in a way that some of us probably never could. I see it all the time, people buying stuff right from their fresh paycheck even though their financial situation would collapse without next month’s paycheck. I see it with the people that I work with too. What are we chasing?

“Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.” - Tyler Durden

There is nothing that I can buy to make me happier. That’s the thing that’s been in my head for a long time. That’s also probably what rich people actually mean when they say that money won’t make you happy or something along those lines. Money will solve your money problems, as Naval Ravikant said, but it won’t make you happy. So far, I haven’t found anything that I have bought that has made me substantially happier. I don’t expect to find them anytime soon; it will probably hold true for a long time so I won’t look for happiness in material things. As you see for yourself, I had my possessions controlling my life more than I do. There is just literally nothing that I can buy that can make me happier. Only myself can make me happier.