My (Brief) Life as a Shopping Addict

Reflecting back on my time in university, I've realized that one of my greatest vices was impulsively buying expensive gadgets that I really didn't need and then regretting it later. Pressing the "Order now" button online never failed to give me a temporary burst of excitement and pleasure. It was worst during my toughest weeks at school, when "retail therapy" served as a potent coping method.

Back in September, my final and toughest year at McMaster began. Besides dealing with a full courseload and graduate applications, I also had to manage my household and aging dog after my parents left for a month-long trip to India. Once my stress levels peaked, I found myself roaming the Internet for cutting-edge gadgets, and my search eventually ended up with the iPhone 4. I found it enjoyable to imagine that I would someday buy it, and spent hours reading and watching product reviews. Then one day, as I was passing by Future Shop, I stopped, walked in and bought the phone. Somehow my many hours on Apple.com had convinced me that I really needed it. 

Within 3 weeks I bought a second laptop on eBay, a Kindle, wireless laser printer, fancy computer speakers and later an iPad 2. The pattern was always the same: research for a few weeks, make the purchase, enjoy the fleeting pleasure and then find something else to buy. As a result, I was left with a lot of expensive stuff that I simply didn’t need. Instead of feeling happier with my new gadgets, wasting that money stressed me out and I felt constantly pressured to actually use them. The iPhone contract virtually turned me into a bonded labourer, since I was forced to pay $70 to Telus to chat on the phone for 10 to 15 minutes a month. I already had a landline at home which fully sufficed.

Then, to my horror, I lost my iPhone in mid-February and my turnaround began. When I realized that I would never get it back, I felt a tremendous sense of loss. Considering the $650 retail price, that phone represented about 50 solid hours of work for me. I had guarded it like a baby for months, even setting up a system whereby I could track it by satellite in case of a loss (in this case, the phone ended up in an apartment building in East Hamilton, not specific enough for me to be able to recover it). I started asking myself tough questions: Why was this phone so important to me and what value had it added to my life? And what about the second laptop, the Kindle and the iPad 2? Did they improve my life?

For the most part, the answer was “No.” I sold most of my gadgets on Kijiji and recouped some of my money. I then decided to embark on an experiment and live as simply as possible. Instead of stimulating myself with computer games, relentless YouTube and TV, I turned to books and the company of others as my main diversion. I sought to slow my life down by enjoying quiet moments and long walks every day (and not frenetically texting at the same time). After a painful few weeks of withdrawal from constant stimulation, I found that my brain adjusted to a lower level of excitement.

After simplifying my life, I've started to feel significantly healthier and happier. In the face of so many external diversions, it's easy to forget that each one of us has the internal resources to feel contented. It's important to nurture this internal happiness because it can sustain you even when those external stimulants have been taken away. Perhaps pursuing simplicity as a model for life is not for everyone, but as someone who is prone to anxiety, it has been invaluable to my personal sense of well-being. At the same time, I won't be giving up my gadgets all together. I think that if a certain product enhances your ability to be efficient or accomplish your goals, it's probably worth buying. I've come to love my Kindle, because it's opened up a new world of free, classic books to me. And yet I won't be buying the iPhone 5, because it'll just be an expensive ball-and-chain around my ankle.