What I Learned from a Month of Low-Impact Consumption

(Note: this is a work in progress.) I have been reflecting a lot lately on what I learned from my month of low-impact consumption for the month of January (even while wandering the aisles of Walgreen's yesterday).

1. Let's start with the obvious: we don't need as much as we think we need. I tell this to overworked teens all the time. They can't get their homework done because they work until 11:30 at night (which is illegal). They have to work because they have to pay for insurance on their car. They have to have a car because . . . they have to get to work. I'm sure you see the problem with that logic, but after all, they are teens, and their brains are still part child. I try explaining to them that they don't need a car, that many people get by without them, that we have these things called buses. Now, telling a 17 year old that she can ride a bus to school is like telling Paris Hilton she only needs one purse. It just doesn't fly. But I never thought it was a lesson I needed to learn. But, alas, I realized the concept of need is a problem for even me. These thoughts went through my head during my low-impact consumption month: I can't finish this scrapbooking page without buying some more coordinating ribbon. I need to buy a new coat. I need a new pair of jeans. Before I finish this making this skirt, I need to buy a new measuring tape. Clearly, I survived a month without buy blue grosgrain ribbon. I cannot survive without food, and I think I can make a case, albeit a weak one, for my need for coffee, but very few things are needed in life. I have promised myself that I'll make the effort to use more appropriate language. I don't need grosgrain ribbon for that scrapbook page, but I think it would be cute. I would like a new jacket, but I'll survive without it. With only one pair of jeans I can squeeze into, another pair would be useful, but one does get me by. I could use a new measure tape, since mine's been sliced, but it's still largely usable.
2. Shopping takes up a lot of time. Not running to Target for tights for my daughter or to Famous Footwear for those "needed" brown tennies or to Old Navy for that great winter sale gave me more time to spend with my children and doing things I enjoy - like sewing, scrapbooking, reading, napping and, of course, meditating. And the not-so-fun, but productive things like grading papers and doing laundry. (The funny thing about the sewing is that I realized I spend so much time shopping for sewing that I don't have time to sew. I have accumulated enough of a "stash" to hold me over for a long time, years if I continue to sew at the slow pace I have been.)
3. I'm not as fragile as I thought. Here in Northern Nevada, we've been having an unusual stream of snow storms. I realized . . . or thought I realized . . . that I needed a new winter coat. The one I currently have fits well enough for me to wear it, but it's a little tight and definitely not zipable. Even with the cold weather, I decided that a not-so-well fitting coat is better than no coat at all, which is what many people, not just in other countries, but in our own town, have for the winter season. Feeling lucky for what we have is a rare commodity in a consumeristic society.
4. Fastfood is really fattening. I lost weight just by not going to McDonald's with my daughter.
5. It really doesn't take that long to make a couple sandwiches.
6. I don't miss fastfood when I don't eat it.
7. I use food as a comfort item. I never thought I did that, but when I had a bad day and didn't have my Starbucks cup to get a comfort-food hot chocolate, I thought my world would implode, which leads me to the next point:
8. I am obsessed with caffeine.
9. My daughter has adopted my consumeristic tendencies. She wasn't like that for years. We could go down the toy aisle of any store, and she'd enjoy looking, but not beg for toys. Not so now. I realized that when I was in the grocery store with her. My plan was to only buy groceries, but it was a struggle getting her out of the store without stickers, ice cream, and coloring books. We did it, though!
10. The best part was that it was truly an exercise in mindfulness. I realized how quickly I jump to the I'll just go to the store and buy it without even considering real need.