Too Many Stuff In Your Room? Stop Hoarding!

As one randomly browsed through her makeup case, bathroom, and toiletries, she started to realize she had too many belongings in her barely touched collection of skin care and hair products. She began to wonder, "What was in my head when I bought them?", "This? I bought this? When? What for?". Sounds familiar?

As a human being, we are specifically designed to react to certain impulses and stimulus. When we see a piercing shining object, such as the sun, we tend to narrow our eyes and cover them with our hands. When we hear noises too loud, we cover our ears to protect our eardrums. But it just so happens that these useful basic reactions came along with a few, let's say, rather expendable sets. For example, when we take a glance our crush (JUST a glance) we tend to get excited for no reason. Another example, well, just look at us, getting attracted to sparkling object and mindlessly purchasing them.

Buying or trading has long been a basic, most crucial tradition of all. Back then we traded something out of need. We would trade our potatoes with meat to complete our meal. Wait, what? To complete our meal, I said. So basically I'm also saying that without meat, our meal would be incomplete, tasteless, monotone. But can we survive without the meat in the first place? Yes, we can. The expanding practice of trading made it hard to distinguish need and want.

When we see something we love, our heads start to make calculations. We start to distinguish the item either as a want or a need. When our brains classify an item as a want, it makes easier calculations afterwards, is it worth the money or not? If the answer is a firm no, we would just skip it. The intricate calculation comes when our brains classify the item as either worthy, or a need. Big businesses and industries began to figure out the way human mind works, and being keen on opportunities, found a roundabout for this particular problem. 

Discounts, Sales, you name them. Those big 50% off signs aren't pure information, you know. When we see that the item's price is lower for the same value and experience, it helps relax our calculation, it gives an impulse saying that it's a rare situation, and not wanting to miss the opportunity, we quickly make up our minds and purchase it. 

So it's probably not entirely our fault that we have a bit too many of what we don't really need. Or is it? Good news is, these impulses can be fought off with the right set of mind. Instead of seeing the big, shiny discount signs, why don't we see the actual price or the item, as if the price hasn't been cut down. 

Following this tip, next time you come across a shiny object, think about it this way, is it really a shiny object, or just another shiny like object.




Cheers!
-The Dilly Chic-

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/anythingbutstill/6554173607/