Aibu to think everything is such a waste?

[AlpineButterfly]

I went into a home type shop this morning. There were fluffy blankets, ugly mirrors, elephant pictures,.dancing Santa's, colourful rugs, word signs. So much stuff. So much tat.

I'm right now babysitting a friend's boy. The telly is on. My god, the rubbish. Adverts, trashy tv. What a waste of time.

How much of life is a waste of time and materials? I'm right now on MN, also a.waste of time.

I wouldn't even know what to do to stop the waste of time and materials. We do buy mostly second hand but... I don't know. I'm not even able to articulate myself properly right that second

@SusanWalker

The internet is amazing, enjoy it and take from it what you want to.

It really is something that everyone all around the world uses every single day.

Like other ppl here I'm fed up with adverts shrieking at me all day every day.

• it's immoral for some people to be redecorating their homes or replacing their cars every two years while others are homeless and starving. I'd like to ban a lot of things until homelessness is sorted (new cars, electronic gadgets, holiday homes, cocaine...)

I've got a house full of things I've inherited like leather gloves and handbags, and my frequently broke sister insists on buying brand new things like leather gloves and handbags ("but this is a slightly longer black leather glove than the black leather glove you offered me"/ "your handbag didn't have tiny otters emblazoned on it"/ etc) because this is how we've all been trained to carry on.

The alternative is gasp to recognise that all people carry equal worth, and we must avoid that notion catching on.

I remember shopping was cited as our mist popular past time tonis ago.

We need to replace capitalism. Capitalism needs us to keep buying keep surfing keep clicking to survive.

All so very true and so very sad. We are advertised to all the time and the amount of shit in stores is horrific.

We’re all conditioned to consume, if we’re not cosuming, we are not living :/

To quote a famous saying (whose saying it is escapes me at the moment) - we buy stuff we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress people we don’t know.

I’ve always been somewhat conscious on not buying too much meaningless crap. But by no means perfect and do aim to get better.

Certainly won’t make any one feel better, but although the U.K consumes waaayyy too much, we’re not a patch on the largest consumers on Earth (USA).

This would explain a statistic I did read once, although the US only accounts for 5% of the Earth’s population, they consume 25% of the Earth’s resources.

It feels like the rise of instagrammers & influencers has just made it worse. They can only get commission from affiliate links on new products. Everywhere I turn it’s a new season launch of this or that. I buy as much as I can second hand, but where’s the $$$ incentive for anyone else there?

I also feel like we’ve created such a horrid world for ourselves that we’re so BUSY that we have to employ people to drive things to our houses that we’ve ordered online. It’d make more sense for us all to have a bit less time at work in order to see to our own needs.

I keep thinking about a wool jumper that my mum would unpick and re-knit in different sizes/when it wore. Now you’d just buy another acrylic jumper.

You been shopping in B&M OP I agree though, went in there the other day, row after row of mostly shite.

You aren't wasting your time now OP, we're all having a chat.

We’re all conditioned to consume, if we’re not cosuming, we are not living :/ I agree, but we can change this.

As an antidote there's a good thread in Chat at the moment about stuff that people have had for over twenty years and still use.

@AlpineButterfly absolutely 100% my philosophy to life. I gave up on 'needing' stuff years ago. Liberating is an understatement.

Fascinating thread, thanks. So much of it resonates with me.
I hope in the very near future many of us will be aghast at how casually we've thrown stuff away over the past few decades.

Our grandparents would have been horrified at our wastefulness .

Time for a change.

From the history books I've read it really does feel like we're currently living in times very similar to the final days of the Roman Empire, but with a modern credit driven, consumerist twist...

An orgy of debt fuelled wanton excess, self indulgence and vacuous attention seeking. Living and spending beyond our means simply to impress others.

I watched Crazy Rich Asians tonight and all I could see was this gluttonous excess and planet rape everywhere as these people with so much money did whatever the fuck they wanted to. And across the way people are starving and the planet is dying.

What. The. Fuck.

It wasn't b&m

I'm interested that most have focused on the plastic consumption. The consumption of time. The consumption of empty calories.

If you go anywhere, look up. Very few people will NOT have their faces in their phones. Right this second I'm ignoring my baby to read this thread. I can think of far better uses of my time. But I don't action it.

The TV program was the worst last night. Utter pointless drivel.

A family member was saying they were struggling for money. Spending £1000 a month from savings. I know their mortgage is only about £20 more expensive than ours and we survive on not much over £1500 a month. As higher rate tax payers what are they doing?

Less food, less stuff, less 'entertainment', more true connection, good food good wine and things we truly enjoy. Who truly enjoys games like idle whatever anyway. I'm growing a fucking egg farm on my phone for goodness sake.

Excuse my rant, the baby was up hourly last night

I agree it’s overboard!

Yanbu.

Totally with you! Desperately trying to scale back my house and xmas and my mum keeps buying all the tat!

YANBU. Especially those monthly subscription beauty boxes like Birchbox and apps like Wish where the stuff comes straight over from China in container ships which are horribly polluting.
Then there's all the Halloween and Christmas tat - more and more novelty advent calendars, Elf on the Shelf, Christmas Eve boxes... It's endless.
There was a similar anti-consumerism thread recently.

My husband asked what I wanted for my birthday this month. He was horrified when I said nothing.

I dot need anything and to be honest I don’t really want anything either. But he wants me to have something to open.

I normally clean eat due to various medical issues so I’m treating myself to pizza , garlic bread , chips and some non dairy ice cream.

To me that’s a huge treat and I’m really looking forward to it. More so than some tat thing that I don’t really want. He thinks I’m mad. But I do the money in this house and I’m not spending good money on something I don’t want or need thankyou very much.

As much as possible I dont use my phone when the kids are with me other than answering it, making necessary calls or texts or occasionally checking emails if waiting for important one. I use MN etc when i have bit of time to self.
In effort to show that living is about going and doing things for ourselves not living and watching other peoples lives through our phones etc.

STBEX on the other hand uses his phone as if it is permanently attached to it, which thwarts my actions somewhat.

When kids and i get a place of our own i was only thinking the other day of having and keeping less stuff which just clutters or dust collects.

I agree! But because I'm trying to sell my house I've had to buy a load of this stuff to 'stage'it. 🙄🙄🙄

Following

'Yes to more security, more food out with friends, more good times in the park eating ice cream. Yes to more cycling, travelling, doing sudoku on our phones.

No, no, no to more make up, more acrylic blankets, pot plants and vases, T-shirt’s and handbags.'

^^Good post upthread.

So glad more people are seeing through this nonsense now.

Recently heard two ladies in a queue at M&S - they were buying Christmas present stuff just so the recipients “have something to unwrap on The Day - they can bring it back after”.

I am amused and annoyed in equal measure both by the crap and the idiots who buy it. Let’s all wind it in a bit and give a bit more to a charity where it really will make a difference.

If you’re having a crisis over this then so am I. I feel as you do a LOT. What a worthless, pointless bunch we are, surrounded by tat, dictated to by adverts and determined to consume consume consume.

Egg your example of selling your house is an excellent one actually. You ARE expected to stage it with the tat and the accessories and the selling of the lifestyle and if you don’t no one will buy into it. They want the show. I remember my parents selling our house when i was a kid....they didn’t decorate or accessorise....they simply tidied up and let people in to look because viewers then understood that you can paint a room or choose your own wallpaper and curtains. They didn’t need to be reassured that they were keeping up with the Joneses before they even bought the bloody house!

It's awful. TV is awful most of the time and people waste every night watching it - I'm not talking about dramas or interesting documentaries, but the really dire stuff and even adverts that people sit through. At a younger age I did the same but once in my late 20's/30's I realised the time I wasted and looked to take up hobbies, see people more and try to improve my use of time.

As for the shops, yes there's loads but rugs, photo frames etc that kind of thing? Well it's up to the individual how the decorate their home so we can't really call that tat I guess.