Just recently, Samsung unveiled their latest Smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy 5 at the Mobile Wireless Congress in Barcelona. This is its latest model of the Galaxy S series. Watching the video of the unveiling on YouTube, the hype around the phone revolved around a stylish design, simplicity, a good camera, long battery life and fitness features. A year has not gone by since the predecessors; the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the Samsung Galaxy S3 were unveiled to consumers. The differences between the 3 phones are not profound and any of them would serve the main purpose of having a mobile handset. However, in a society largely driven by consumerism, one has to buy the latest in order to be the best or ‘be happy’. This is a culture that puts so much emphasis and expectations on money, power, status, and perceived success. But does this bring happiness? In a world driven by material possessions, I believe living a minimalist lifestyle is the only way to happiness.
Being a Vietnamese, I had heard lots about the American dream. After all, America is the land of opportunity, the land of milk and honey, where your dreams of success are valid. According to me, the factors that defined success were getting a nice job, owning a nice house, owning a nice car and having excess money to splash on luxury. However, after achieving these materialistic goals, I often find myself worrying about money because of the consumerism society that we live in. I have about 100 pairs of shoes, tons of jackets and purses but I cannot use all of them at the same time. It now dawns on me that those were things that gave me temporary happiness but eventually faded away. There were many pressures associated with getting material wealth. It was from going to the temple and listening to Buddhist teachings that I realized happiness does not lie within the material things under my possession, but from owning less and seeing the value of consumer disobedience.
According to Buddhist teachings, humans have great potential which can be hampered by their attachment to worldly desires and material possessions. As such, Buddhism advocates for a simple and clear life that focuses on the self, and this in turn translates to happiness. A number of people will be quick to remark that there can be no happiness without money or material possessions. Going through the internet, I came across a story about a man who lives without money in the website worldobserveronline.com. In this story, Mark Boyle, an Irishman tries to live a life without income, without a bank balance and without spending and documents the details of such a life. While Mark had a big job as a manager in an organic food company and had a yacht on the harbor, he realized that he didn’t have peace of mind. He observes, “I believe the fact that we no longer see the direct repercussions that our purchases have on the people, the animals, and the environment” (World Observer 1). So mark decided to live a life without money. He ate food from the crops that he grew, had a donated caravan for a shelter, bathed in the river and used beeswax candles for lighting. Mark observed that “ironically, this year has been the happiest of my life” (World Observer 1).
Minimalism entails finding happiness right where you are, rather than finding it in something else. According to Becker (1), we should recognize happiness and not chase it. Becker tells of a story about a businessman who came across a fisherman lying on a beach with a fishing rod cast out in the water. The businessman could not understand the laziness of the man and decided to confront telling him how he could use nets to catch more fish and make money. According to the businessman, the fisherman would then buy boats and employ people who could do the fishing for him while he makes the money. The fisherman was quick to ask the businessman what his reward would be if he did all that. The businessman’s answer was that “then you do not have to work again and you can spend as much time sitting on the beach”, to which the fisherman replied with a big smile, “”and that is what I am doing right now” (Becker 1).
The answer to happiness lies in living a simple life. Minimalism gives us a sense of freedom since it reduces our attachment to material things. Material things and consumerism are like chains of captivity that have people living in debts. The end result of more money is not happiness but depression, obesity, crime, suicide and alienation from self. It reduces us to the level that we believe that happiness can only be found in the next paycheck, the next competition, or the next acquisition. This leads us to living a whole life of wanting more and more which in turn becomes greed; having more than we can actually consume or we actually need. The solution to this is a minimalist lifestyle, a lifestyle that clears all the clutter in our lives. It strips away the clutter and gives us a new financial freedom that we can in turn use for new experiences that we can enjoy and share with other people.
Works Cited
World Observer. “The Man Who Lives Without Money”. World Observer, 04 Oct. 2013. Web. 08 April 2014.
Becker, Joshua. “Don’t Chase Happiness, Recognize it.” Becoming Minimalist, 2013. Web. 08 April 2014.
