I liked this remark: "Everywhere I look, there’s this relentless push to curate every aspect of our lives into something that can be packaged and shared". That push, when internalized, is the cause of your problem.
When I realized that I just didn't give a shit whether the forks and knives match, or our glasses, or literally anything else on the table, then I stopped caring about "stuff". So, I don't look for the "right" thing to make the apartment or house look the way I want it to look. Instead, I don't want it to look pretty much any way. It doesn't cross my mind at all. I don't *fight* it. I never even think about it anymore.
I sort of joke that the road to hell starts when you buy cloth napkins. That's a sure sign that you're starting to care too much about the shit you own. If you start down that road, then you'll spend colossal amounts of time, energy, attention, and money on stuff that you'll eventually realize don't bring you much happiness. And you'll give all that shit away.
Your comment is thought provoking. I spent too much on cloth napkins, a proper table, crystal and matching silverware. I did that when I stopped going out, and wanted to recreate the loving home that my grandparents had. My spending shifted from experiences with friends to quality linen curtains. My desires for close family and a small dinner party with my friends are outweighing my desires to go on vacation, drink or be on trend. Three years ago I would have made fun of myself for buying matching silverware. I was so carefree and adventurous. It’s funny how priorities shift when through time. Edited to add that nothing in our little apartment is expensive or specific to an aesthetic. I focused on quality things that will be useful for 40+ years.
Going only by what you wrote here, it sounds like you're trying to achieve something by acquiring its trimmings, without the real thing that the trimmings are supposed to surround.
Drinking, partying, and paying attention to trends are typically things we do in our youth, and then give up. But it seems to me that the next step isn't the trimmings of a loving home but the people to populate it. Perhaps that is a harsh truth.
While you do make a valid point, I didn’t mention how my relationships with friends and values changed during that period. I got engaged to my soulmate, revitalized my faith and discovered who truly cares for me. Eating dinner at the dining table with my person every night and hosting friends with good glassware and board games are what bring me joy now. Providing a comfortable space for my loved ones to enjoy is more important to me than going out.
This is such a sharp and grounded take — especially the insight that the internalized need to curate is the root of the problem. You’re absolutely right: the minute we stop asking our surroundings to reflect some aspirational version of ourselves, the pressure dissolves. The cloth napkin line is gold — not just because it’s funny, but because it nails how easily small choices become gateways to obsession. What starts as an innocent preference becomes a slippery slope into aesthetic anxiety. Letting go of that impulse isn’t apathy; it’s freedom.
There is nothing wrong about taking a picture. It's the motivation that matters. If it's just to share in on Instagram, that's a motivation that doesn't come from your own desire to enjoy things. But not taking a picture of something you enjoy doesn't make you a better or more contained person.
Reading my original comment a few months later, it does sound a bit snobby to me.
I certainly don't think it makes me better or contained - but I do think there is a "tax" to photographing every experience.
This is how I've always felt, my wife hates it. We go on a family trip and when she makes us stop to snap a pic I feel like a little kid who's playtime was paused/interrupted.
Of course when I look at our google photos later in the future I thank her.
I think you've hit on a great point - the motivation is what matters.
But I still hate the "photo tax" in my day to day.
Maybe my solution is to have a drone follow us arround taking pictures and sending them to our private family albums.
I’ve also recently practiced not taking pictures of things (I am someone who heavily documents my life) but I think that the beauty in it was enjoying the subject for a few more seconds. Taking a picture felt like allowed me to walk away and not soak it in because hey I have it in my camera roll anyway. I think it can occasionally be a nice exercise of enjoying the moment :)
Yes, it is social media now. But not so long ago, it was fashion magazines, print & broadcast ads, shopping malls, movie & tv show sets, HGTV, the next door neighbors who beckoned us to buy stuff for the same reasons.
It's well documented that we currently buy more stuff than ever before. Buying stuff became extremely accessible, quick, and painless. Contact less pay, free next day shipping, 1-click-to-pay and all these other services that pretend to make our life easier but it just made it easier to spend our money for things we don't need.
Also, we can't compare well curated magazines that were being released on a fortnightly or a monthly basis with online content creators that can produce sponsored content every day - with a direct link through their bio to buy. I don't think anyone would find themselves revamping their kitchen or bathroom according to seasons just because they saw it in Marie Claire, but when the impulse comes from social media, somehow it seems obtainable because people still didn't fully grasp on the fact that social media is not real and we don't know these influencers despite being able to follow their days at all time.
The problem is still our consumerist mindset but the engine fueling it got much more powerful and effective while also enabling acting on momentary desires.
Social media is the form social mimicry takes now. The point is, current culture is aimed at making us think that a purchase will 'fix things', when it never does. So one has to actively fight against this current, if one is not naturally impervious to what other people do or say. And most of us aren't.
The nail hit squarely on the head. Social Media drives competition, consumption and anxiety. It's absolutely toxic and a perfect way to not live your life. It's the first thing to discard if you want a quiet life.
It seems like you are really overthinking this. Just let go. Enjoy your life in the moment. Even in attempting to let go and wanting less, you seem to be focused on what you are supposed to be doing for a larger audience.
I enjoy getting up early to drink a cup of coffee every morning while I read or prep for my work day while I sit in my worn, saggy, orange Queen Anne super-comfortable chair that belonged to my grandmother and occasionally glance at my orchids on the old second hand converted-to-plant stand coffee table by the window. It isn’t winning any instagram awards. I am content. And I couldn’t give two shits.
This is my home. I am not trying to please anybody but me. I couldn’t care less what anybody else thinks of this space.
Curating? What a weird concept to apply to your everyday life and your home. Your life is not a museum. Let it go.
"Just let go. Enjoy your life in the moment." - I think that's precisely the problem: many simply don't know how; it's fear based. I remember the "good old days", but for younger people that's all they know - entire life curated and on display.
I feel very similarly. We live in a consumer based society, but like there's this tug of war between discomfort with overconsumption because it's not fulfilling and underconsumption which seems ideal but is also unfulfilling because everyone else still over consumes which makes you feel like you don't fit in. "They seem happy, what am I doing wrong?"
One thing I do wrt house stuff is thrift as much as I can. You get the satisfaction of having a memory with the purchased item and it's usually different from everything being sold everywhere else. You have to shop in person and touch things. Many things you can personalize or upcycle into something different making another memory. It's still a form of consumption but it can also be a hobby.
At the root of this is the question of purpose. Are we manufacturing an image or living a life - and what is that life FOR? A lovely spot or space that we build is more satisfying when it is for a purpose - to care for people, to create a comforting space or even a refuge from the hustle bustle for both ourselves and others. I find it helpful to ask myself what it is I’m trying to DO with all the curating and consuming? And how will it matter beyond the desire to purchase another thing to “perfect” the picture.
I’ve been working on myself to say, ‘yes, that is beautiful and I like it, but it does not fit with what I am doing here.’ This forces me to look inwards when making a purpose. When I get things, it needs to be more than just a mood or something lovely to look at, it needs to serve a larger purpose.
This really speaks to me (and hundreds of others judging by the engagement).
I think we’ll get to a point in society where lots of people who feel burnt from the rat race will do a complete 180 - so many of us are saying we no longer feel like we want to continue climbing the corporate ladder.
We just want happiness, healthiness and a low-stress lifestyle.
Brit here - sleepy villages & authentic cottage core no longer exists. The homes that look glorious in the ads are second homes owned by hedge fundies or corporate hacks who buy their look ‘whole’ from high end retailers or fancy architects. People who actually live in cottages (me) can’t sit around cosy fires because the insurance cost is too high & chimney sweeps are no longer impoverished urchins but well heeled suppliers driving shiny vans knowing that only the rich are stupid enough to have fires instead of central heating. On which, cottage living in winter is akin to standing in front of a hurricane in a bikini. If your cottage is deemed historical, you are banned, yes banned, from doing normal, sensible things like upgrading windows, insulating walls & replacing plumbing / heating with systems developed in the last 150 years. Everything must be submitted through 5 cycles of hell for ‘listed building consent’ and after 18 months of expense, you will be informed that you may ‘repair’ your rotten, mouldy windows with a singular brand of ‘heritage product’ that costs 5x as much as a regular polymer. So banish all thoughts of charming Brits living in tucked away cottages sipping tea. We all live in cold, poorly insulated houses on charmless housing estates or in expensive, un repairable heritage properties in commuter belts, or second home land, where Range Rovers & Teslas rule. There is no sleepy village left in the country & if there is, people are too poor to afford tea & have no time to socialise between their 3 gig economy jobs.
I liked this remark: "Everywhere I look, there’s this relentless push to curate every aspect of our lives into something that can be packaged and shared". That push, when internalized, is the cause of your problem.
When I realized that I just didn't give a shit whether the forks and knives match, or our glasses, or literally anything else on the table, then I stopped caring about "stuff". So, I don't look for the "right" thing to make the apartment or house look the way I want it to look. Instead, I don't want it to look pretty much any way. It doesn't cross my mind at all. I don't *fight* it. I never even think about it anymore.
I sort of joke that the road to hell starts when you buy cloth napkins. That's a sure sign that you're starting to care too much about the shit you own. If you start down that road, then you'll spend colossal amounts of time, energy, attention, and money on stuff that you'll eventually realize don't bring you much happiness. And you'll give all that shit away.
Your comment is thought provoking. I spent too much on cloth napkins, a proper table, crystal and matching silverware. I did that when I stopped going out, and wanted to recreate the loving home that my grandparents had. My spending shifted from experiences with friends to quality linen curtains. My desires for close family and a small dinner party with my friends are outweighing my desires to go on vacation, drink or be on trend. Three years ago I would have made fun of myself for buying matching silverware. I was so carefree and adventurous. It’s funny how priorities shift when through time. Edited to add that nothing in our little apartment is expensive or specific to an aesthetic. I focused on quality things that will be useful for 40+ years.
Going only by what you wrote here, it sounds like you're trying to achieve something by acquiring its trimmings, without the real thing that the trimmings are supposed to surround.
Drinking, partying, and paying attention to trends are typically things we do in our youth, and then give up. But it seems to me that the next step isn't the trimmings of a loving home but the people to populate it. Perhaps that is a harsh truth.
While you do make a valid point, I didn’t mention how my relationships with friends and values changed during that period. I got engaged to my soulmate, revitalized my faith and discovered who truly cares for me. Eating dinner at the dining table with my person every night and hosting friends with good glassware and board games are what bring me joy now. Providing a comfortable space for my loved ones to enjoy is more important to me than going out.
This is such a sharp and grounded take — especially the insight that the internalized need to curate is the root of the problem. You’re absolutely right: the minute we stop asking our surroundings to reflect some aspirational version of ourselves, the pressure dissolves. The cloth napkin line is gold — not just because it’s funny, but because it nails how easily small choices become gateways to obsession. What starts as an innocent preference becomes a slippery slope into aesthetic anxiety. Letting go of that impulse isn’t apathy; it’s freedom.
Yesterday i found the most beautiful corner in a coffee shop, plants, dim lights, little wooden window.
I though about pulling out my phone, but instead just took a mental picture and enjoyed it all to myself
There is nothing wrong about taking a picture. It's the motivation that matters. If it's just to share in on Instagram, that's a motivation that doesn't come from your own desire to enjoy things. But not taking a picture of something you enjoy doesn't make you a better or more contained person.
Reading my original comment a few months later, it does sound a bit snobby to me.
I certainly don't think it makes me better or contained - but I do think there is a "tax" to photographing every experience.
This is how I've always felt, my wife hates it. We go on a family trip and when she makes us stop to snap a pic I feel like a little kid who's playtime was paused/interrupted.
Of course when I look at our google photos later in the future I thank her.
I think you've hit on a great point - the motivation is what matters.
But I still hate the "photo tax" in my day to day.
Maybe my solution is to have a drone follow us arround taking pictures and sending them to our private family albums.
I’ve also recently practiced not taking pictures of things (I am someone who heavily documents my life) but I think that the beauty in it was enjoying the subject for a few more seconds. Taking a picture felt like allowed me to walk away and not soak it in because hey I have it in my camera roll anyway. I think it can occasionally be a nice exercise of enjoying the moment :)
Idk. Sounds like a social media problem. All these "society says this or that" things seem so unrelatable. It's not "society." It's social media.
Yes, it is social media now. But not so long ago, it was fashion magazines, print & broadcast ads, shopping malls, movie & tv show sets, HGTV, the next door neighbors who beckoned us to buy stuff for the same reasons.
It's well documented that we currently buy more stuff than ever before. Buying stuff became extremely accessible, quick, and painless. Contact less pay, free next day shipping, 1-click-to-pay and all these other services that pretend to make our life easier but it just made it easier to spend our money for things we don't need.
Also, we can't compare well curated magazines that were being released on a fortnightly or a monthly basis with online content creators that can produce sponsored content every day - with a direct link through their bio to buy. I don't think anyone would find themselves revamping their kitchen or bathroom according to seasons just because they saw it in Marie Claire, but when the impulse comes from social media, somehow it seems obtainable because people still didn't fully grasp on the fact that social media is not real and we don't know these influencers despite being able to follow their days at all time.
The problem is still our consumerist mindset but the engine fueling it got much more powerful and effective while also enabling acting on momentary desires.
mimetic desires just change the container, not so much the idea behind them.
Social media is the form social mimicry takes now. The point is, current culture is aimed at making us think that a purchase will 'fix things', when it never does. So one has to actively fight against this current, if one is not naturally impervious to what other people do or say. And most of us aren't.
The nail hit squarely on the head. Social Media drives competition, consumption and anxiety. It's absolutely toxic and a perfect way to not live your life. It's the first thing to discard if you want a quiet life.
Thank you Bell.
It seems like you are really overthinking this. Just let go. Enjoy your life in the moment. Even in attempting to let go and wanting less, you seem to be focused on what you are supposed to be doing for a larger audience.
I enjoy getting up early to drink a cup of coffee every morning while I read or prep for my work day while I sit in my worn, saggy, orange Queen Anne super-comfortable chair that belonged to my grandmother and occasionally glance at my orchids on the old second hand converted-to-plant stand coffee table by the window. It isn’t winning any instagram awards. I am content. And I couldn’t give two shits.
This is my home. I am not trying to please anybody but me. I couldn’t care less what anybody else thinks of this space.
Curating? What a weird concept to apply to your everyday life and your home. Your life is not a museum. Let it go.
Trust me. Nobody cares.
"Just let go. Enjoy your life in the moment." - I think that's precisely the problem: many simply don't know how; it's fear based. I remember the "good old days", but for younger people that's all they know - entire life curated and on display.
Which to me is so sad.
I don’t think it’s irreversible.
I feel very similarly. We live in a consumer based society, but like there's this tug of war between discomfort with overconsumption because it's not fulfilling and underconsumption which seems ideal but is also unfulfilling because everyone else still over consumes which makes you feel like you don't fit in. "They seem happy, what am I doing wrong?"
One thing I do wrt house stuff is thrift as much as I can. You get the satisfaction of having a memory with the purchased item and it's usually different from everything being sold everywhere else. You have to shop in person and touch things. Many things you can personalize or upcycle into something different making another memory. It's still a form of consumption but it can also be a hobby.
One answer is in your first paragraph: stop trying to fit in.
Luxury problems do not end through brilliant analysis, but rather through experiences where analysis fails.
Yes, even minimalism becomes a competitive performance.
Reminds me a bit of that Kenny Rogers song “You Can’t Make Old Friends.” The rule applies. Loved this piece thank you!
At the root of this is the question of purpose. Are we manufacturing an image or living a life - and what is that life FOR? A lovely spot or space that we build is more satisfying when it is for a purpose - to care for people, to create a comforting space or even a refuge from the hustle bustle for both ourselves and others. I find it helpful to ask myself what it is I’m trying to DO with all the curating and consuming? And how will it matter beyond the desire to purchase another thing to “perfect” the picture.
I’ve been working on myself to say, ‘yes, that is beautiful and I like it, but it does not fit with what I am doing here.’ This forces me to look inwards when making a purpose. When I get things, it needs to be more than just a mood or something lovely to look at, it needs to serve a larger purpose.
This is how I’ve been differentiating my purchases! Needs vs practical wants vs unpractical wants.
This is how I’ve been differentiating my purchases! Needs vs practical wants vs unpractical wants.
This is amazing, feels like something I’d want to say it out loud to the world, and very well written! Thank you for writing this!
Thanks for sharing this!! I genuinely loved it <3
This really speaks to me (and hundreds of others judging by the engagement).
I think we’ll get to a point in society where lots of people who feel burnt from the rat race will do a complete 180 - so many of us are saying we no longer feel like we want to continue climbing the corporate ladder.
We just want happiness, healthiness and a low-stress lifestyle.
Sell all of your belongings and hike the Appalachian Trail. Do it!
I needed this, thank you very much :)
Leave Instagram and this problem will disappear. It seems like you always feel watched by the crowd, hence the anxiety.
Brit here - sleepy villages & authentic cottage core no longer exists. The homes that look glorious in the ads are second homes owned by hedge fundies or corporate hacks who buy their look ‘whole’ from high end retailers or fancy architects. People who actually live in cottages (me) can’t sit around cosy fires because the insurance cost is too high & chimney sweeps are no longer impoverished urchins but well heeled suppliers driving shiny vans knowing that only the rich are stupid enough to have fires instead of central heating. On which, cottage living in winter is akin to standing in front of a hurricane in a bikini. If your cottage is deemed historical, you are banned, yes banned, from doing normal, sensible things like upgrading windows, insulating walls & replacing plumbing / heating with systems developed in the last 150 years. Everything must be submitted through 5 cycles of hell for ‘listed building consent’ and after 18 months of expense, you will be informed that you may ‘repair’ your rotten, mouldy windows with a singular brand of ‘heritage product’ that costs 5x as much as a regular polymer. So banish all thoughts of charming Brits living in tucked away cottages sipping tea. We all live in cold, poorly insulated houses on charmless housing estates or in expensive, un repairable heritage properties in commuter belts, or second home land, where Range Rovers & Teslas rule. There is no sleepy village left in the country & if there is, people are too poor to afford tea & have no time to socialise between their 3 gig economy jobs.