HAPPINESS THROUGH WHAT YOU BUY

ByGabriella,Hannah & Eden

Have you ever gone home to your parents to ask for that top you saw a few of your friends wearing at school? Do you ever buy things for the sake of being ‘popular’? In this article, we will investigate why we buy things to make us happy, and whether these things truly do make us happy, looking specifically at the ideas of philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. Beauvoir personally was not interested in things that were really expensive – in fact she loved cheap shops. She thought that what we really want is to enjoy our lives, but we make the mistake of thinking that the objects we buy are key to our enjoyment.

In youth, many people seem to think that if they have a specific item, they will be happy. If a lot of your friends have something, it’s easy to fall into the trap of wanting it too. For instance, you may ask your parents to get you a certain necklace from a specific shop. You would probably tell them that it would make you really happy, and you may also try and come up with a way to make them feel bad for not giving it to you, and then eventually persuade them to buy it for you, even if you’ve never enjoyed wearing jewellery! In a few months, it may have gone out of trend, and you may have forgotten about it entirely. Therefore, the object you received did not make you happy in the long term.

We all frequently fall into the trap of thinking a temporary purchase will give us long term happiness. However, if you have an item which has special meaning, it makes sense that you should prioritise it over something else that is currently in trend that you only buy because other people have it. Beauvoir once said; ‘Remember to ask yourself if you really want it or whether you just think you do. Keep in mind that even if you do not get exactly what you want, it might not have been the thing that would make you happy at all. Most of the time, what matters much more is whether we feel like we have enough time and freedom to do the things we like.’

The late Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks also wrote about finding happiness in unexpected places in his book ‘Celebrating Life’. After writing about a wealthy man who was very philanthropic, he said, “Happiness is not what we own. It is what we share.” This quote reminds us that what we buy will not necessarily bring us long-term happiness. Therefore, it is essential to search for longterm satisfaction in the moments that we share with others in our lives.