A few days ago I watched the German film “100 Dinge” (100 Things) for the second time. At heart it’s a comedy, but not the predictable kind you’ve seen a hundred times; it’s a comedy with a point. Anyway, this isn’t about the film, but about its theme, which got me thinking and looking at myself. Consumerism, the disease of modern times. And yes, we are all part of it. And if I had to choose 100 things out of everything I own, what would they be?
In short, without spoiling anything: the film is about two friends who, for certain reasons, make a bet that for 100 days they will use only 100 things, and each day they are allowed to pick one item they get to use. The beginning of the film is the most brilliant part for me, where the narrator looks back through history at how many objects each generation owned on average, and what its goals were. Will it get you interested if I tell you that our great-grandparents owned 57 things, while each of us owns around 10,000 on average? Go figure. So if you come across this film, I warmly recommend it.
No, I won’t lecture you here about how bad consumerism is and why. First, that’s a commonplace. Second, there’s enough preaching from every side already, and the last thing you need is me giving a sermon on it too.
What this is about is that I realized the two biggest reasons why, although I know consumerism as such is bad, I give in to two temptations, and in those situations I don’t feel guilty at all.
The first “sin”
I grew up in Serbia in the 90s. For those who may not know, let me paint a picture of what that looked like for most of us: chocolate as such was a rarity and a luxury, not to mention toys and books. I don’t think I grew up poor, but I was far from having everything I would have liked to have. I had one Barbie. I had a “substitute” for Lego, blocks made of such bad plastic that hardly any of them fit into another without falling out, and you could cut yourself on a sharp edge at any moment. Today I’m grateful even for that, because many children didn’t have even that much.
My daughter is growing up in Germany in the 21st century, with all the advantages of life in the West and access to almost everything my childhood lacked. Maybe I’m trying to defend myself here, but I never regret spending money on a book or a toy I know Sofia will play with. So she has a Barbie house, an IKEA kitchen and a mountain of Lego Duplo, recently regular Lego too, more than 10 sets of puzzles, and so many books in three languages that we’ve lost count. Not to mention dinosaurs of every color, shape and size. So?
Are we going to spoil her?
My view is that we aren’t, and that spoiling as a concept is long outdated. In my opinion, it’s a concept developed to condemn any way of raising children that isn’t the “iron fist” type. In our culture, every bit of a child’s resistance and every expression of emotion, especially displeasure, gets labeled as being spoiled. From the very moment a child is born, we are buried in myths: “Don’t carry him all the time, you’ll spoil him”, “Don’t pick him up every time he cries, you’ll spoil him”, “Don’t buy him too many toys, you’ll spoil him”, and so on, endlessly.
What if, for a change, we started thinking a little about the child’s needs before we answer our surroundings’ twisted need to judge?
By this I don’t mean that 10 Barbies are a child’s need per se, at least not one of the basic needs in Maslow’s hierarchy.
But if that child plays very actively with those Barbies and has been taught to respect what she has, and if the parents can afford it, then why not?
It’s true that love can’t be bought with gifts, but it’s just as true that giving to others makes us happy. Only recently did I realize that I personally feel much more joy waiting for my loved ones’ reaction when I give them something I believe they’ll like than when I get something I wanted myself.
Marko and I are aware that the way we grew up has a big influence on our inability to pull the brake when it comes to buying things for Sofia, but you know what? We don’t feel guilty about it.
Hi, I’m Mima and I’m a bookaholic
My own biggest problem is, of course, books.
I love buying books because I love reading books. Simple as that.
As a little girl I was a passionate member of the city library, and today I’m a member of several and use them actively. But ever since I’ve been able to afford books myself, I don’t regret a single penny. And Marko is exactly the same, because birds of a feather flock together, right? So from the very first day we started dating, our biggest dream was to have a huge home library.
In our effort to bring our consumerism under control, the logical first step was to look at buying books.
That’s why Marko and I agreed that each of us may buy two books a month. We didn’t want to stick to an amount, because in our case that doesn’t make much sense: the books he chooses or needs for work often cost around 50 euros, while for that money I could buy at least 10 (I have this odd skill, or rather luck, for finding almost new books for ridiculously little money, what can I do). So, for all these reasons, the deal was to limit ourselves to two books. And how do you think that went?
I was really proud when half the month had passed and we had kept our deal. But it isn’t even the end of the month yet and the deal has already fallen through. And no, it’s not his fault, it’s mine.
I could defend myself with the fact that it’s corona time and the libraries where I would normally find the books I ordered are closed because of it. But I won’t. It’s my fault. Me and my urge to buy books. I confess.
So in my case, the film I mentioned would boil down to nothing but 90 books and a few pieces of clothing, just so I wouldn’t have to go out among people in my negligee, right?
Now you’ll say, wait, this is a text glorifying consumerism, not criticizing it. But it isn’t, believe me.
We don’t suffer from having to own the latest phone, expensive clothes or a car (we don’t have one at all), owning our own apartment or house isn’t important to us, and we don’t need to eat at expensive restaurants or sleep in expensive hotels…
And of course none of us really needs every single thing that catches our eye or crosses our mind.
But we want to have a huge library and to play with Sofia and her super cool toys, because yes, we’re living a new childhood with her, and that’s perfectly okay for us.
With this text I wanted to encourage you to think about your own spending habits. To see what you might be throwing money away on, and what you are very happy to spend money on (and that’s completely okay if you earned it yourself).
I’ve confessed my sins. What are yours?
Warmly,
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