“The freedom of mankind does not lie in the fact that can do what we want, but that we do not have to do that which do not want.”J.J. Rousseau
Mankind has always had a tendency to overestimate himself. It is quite normal that we want to feel ourselves different and special. Today, there has been a world of consumption that is using such feelings. Truth to be told, it has become so serious that we have to learn to protect ourselves. We want to have a lot of things in life, and in parallel there is a fiction that makes us feel like we are fulfilling our desire.
We always buy more, we always want to wear better, we always want to go to the more elegant restaurants It is enough to observe your environment to add more examples. We live in a materialistic world. We want new things and buy more and more everyday, then we get bored in a short time. We live in a big house, or we are eager to move in, we have the enthusiasm to switch to the upper model even our phone is working properly, the habit of buying lots of things is becoming a constant part of our life day by day!
Similar to the old times, the 21st century man needs to prove himself, too. What worries me is that the way we try to satisfy this feeling. Now a lot of people have tried to prove their existence around a 4K television, a gorgeous car or a recent model phone, rather than a book, a project or a nice act. We started to choose luxury over necessity. To reach comfort, luxury can be good as long as it is used reasonably. However, it just started to seem like a necessity to be able to look good in the neighborhood. As one of the most typical examples of all of us witness is most of the people use smartphones with their basic functions, far from many leverage functions that can contribute to our lives. Nevertheless, we are affected by marketing campaigns and find ourselves in the phone shop when the new ones come out.
In Yuval Noah Harari‘s successful book, Sapiens, this subject has been mentioned in detail. We live in a world that encourages consumption and we are far from determining our direction as it drifts in a high stream. The desire to get things we do not need, which is also defined as a luxury trap, eventually becomes the necessity. Afterward; we feel the need to have that car, that house, that phone, so we could be happy. As a result of that, we are re-engaging in recruitment, just like addicted people because of the short term effect of impulse buying for happiness. I recommend you to read Sapiens, which contains information about luxury trap and much more.
We have to learn to oppose the misconception of the present world that we can prove ourselves to other people by what we have. We also need to make a conscious effort to develop ourselves. Next week I will be looking at minimalism, which is the opposite of the luxury trap. Have a good week.