Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed

Well I’m in the working world again. I’vefound myself a well-paying gig in the engineering industry, and life finallyfeels like it’s returning to normal after my nine months of traveling.

Because I had been living quite a differentlifestyle while I was away, this sudden transition to 9-to-5 existence hasexposed something about it that I overlooked before.

Since the moment I was offered the job,I’ve been markedly more careless with my money. Not stupid, just a little quickto pull out my wallet. As a small example, I’m buying expensive coffees again,even though they aren’t nearly as good as New Zealand’s exceptional flatwhites, and I don’t get to savor the experience of drinking them on a sunnycafé patio. When I was away these purchases were less off-handed, and I enjoyedthem more.

I’m not talking about big, extravagantpurchases. I’m talking about small-scale, casual, promiscuous spending on stuffthat doesn’t really add a whole lot to my life. And I won’t actually get paidfor another two weeks.

In hindsight I think I’ve always done thiswhen I’ve been well-employed — spending happily during the “flush times.”Having spent nine months living a no-income backpacking lifestyle, I can’t helpbut be a little more aware of this phenomenon as it happens.

I suppose I do it because I feel I’veregained a certain stature, now that I am again an amply-paid professional,which seems to entitle me to a certain level of wastefulness. There is acurious feeling of power you get when you drop a couple of twenties without atrace of critical thinking. It feels good to exercise that power of the dollarwhen you know it will “grow back” pretty quickly anyway.

What I’m doing isn’t unusual at all.Everyone else seems to do this. In fact, I think I’ve only returned to thenormal consumer mentality after having spent some time away from it.

One of the most surprising discoveries Imade during my trip was that I spent much less per month traveling foreigncounties (including countries more expensive than Canada) than I did as aregular working joe back home. I had much more free time, I was visiting someof the most beautiful places in the world, I was meeting new people left andright, I was calm and peaceful and otherwise having an unforgettable time, andsomehow it cost me much less than my humble 9-5 lifestyle here in one ofCanada’s least expensive cities.

It seems I got much more for my dollar whenI was traveling. Why?

A Culture of Unnecessaries

Here in the West, a lifestyle ofunnecessary spending has been deliberately cultivated and nurtured in thepublic by big business. Companies in all kinds of industries have a huge stakein the public’s penchant to be careless with their money. They will seek toencourage the public’s habit of casual or non-essential spending whenever theycan.

In the documentary The Corporation, amarketing psychologist discussed one of the methods she used to increase sales.Her staff carried out a study on what effect the nagging of children had ontheir parents’ likelihood of buying a toy for them. They found out that 20% to40% of the purchases of their toys would not have occurred if the child didn’tnag its parents. One in four visits to theme parks would not have taken place.They used these studies to market their products directly to children,encouraging them to nag their parents to buy.

This marketing campaign alone representsmany millions of dollars that were spent because of demand that was completelymanufactured.

“You can manipulate consumers into wanting,and therefore buying, your products. It’s a game.” ~ Lucy Hughes, co-creator of“The Nag Factor”

This is only one small example of somethingthat has been going on for a very long time. Big companies didn’t make theirmillions by earnestly promoting the virtues of their products, they made it bycreating a culture of hundreds of millions of people that buy way more thanthey need and try to chase away dissatisfaction with money.

We buy stuff to cheer ourselves up, to keepup with the Joneses, to fulfill our childhood vision of what our adulthoodwould be like, to broadcast our status to the world, and for a lot of otherpsychological reasons that have very little to do with how useful the productreally is. How much stuff is in your basement or garage that you haven’t usedin the past year?

The real reason for the forty-hour workweek

The ultimate tool for corporations tosustain a culture of this sort is to develop the 40-hour workweek as the normallifestyle. Under these working conditions people have to build a life in theevenings and on weekends. This arrangement makes us naturally more inclined tospend heavily on entertainment and conveniences because our free time is soscarce.