When I was five and binging Sesame Street, I wanted an Ernie puppet.
At ten, my friends and I were obsessed with building things, and I’d moved on to LEGOs.
By eighteen, I was caught up in the go-go eighties of Risky Business and Gordon Gekko. (“Greed is good!”) Dress for Success was my Bible. I dreamt of owning a red BMW, the talisman to signal “I made it!” to others.
Perhaps you’ve heard of the French philosopher René Girard. (He’s having a moment.)
Girard coined the term “mimetic desire,” which is the kind of urge I was experiencing when I told myself a red BMW was life’s big prize.
Mimetic desires are extrinsically motivated. You want something because someone else wants something. I was obsessed with things not because I wanted them, but because others around me did.
Living my life like a donkey chasing a carrot:
Look familiar?
Fortunately, unlike the donkey, we have opposable thumbs. We can reach up to take off the carrot contraption. Heck, we might even eat the carrot.
I wish I could say this was a “Eureka!” moment, a flash of inspiration that shocked me into realizing that a certain car, a certain watch or a certain carrot was the answer.
Instead, it was an accumulation of experiences. I remember reading Stumbling on Happiness and discovering how unkind we are to our future selves because we often aim for extrinsically motivated goals.
We’re chasing carrots only to discover we don’t like carrots.
And after watching Graham Hill’s TED Talk, I thought that perhaps a less-is-more approach would be informative.
I also considered this lesson to be important in my area of expertise, money smarts for kids, so I took my family along for the ride.
We tried a present-free Christmas, and we all found that traveling, in lieu of gift giving, was satisfying. My kids, of course, weren’t magically transformed into gift-eschewing minimalists, but they recognized the value of experiences over things.
I then began to winnow my wardrobe and paradoxically discovered that reducing one domain helped me gain in another. Notably, freedom to think. I spent less time on triviality. We have only so much daily mental energy to commit to decisions, and choosing clothes whittles away at that reserve.
Having fewer carrots made me less hungry.
Of course, I’m human. So like all humans, I desire things. I’m simply learning to channel those desires better.
To make my future self a little happier.
And if you’re thinking this is a manifesto on minimalism, that is not my intention. I’m fine with luxuries. I simply compartmentalize mine.
For example, here’s my office:
Like many entrepreneurs today, my business affords me flexibility. I don’t need the trappings of a traditional workplace.
I wanted a nice bag to call my office. (Writing it that way sounds funny, but that’s what I was looking for.) I knew I needed a bag that could stand alone, and I discovered there were very few options.
So I found a bag that was almost exactly what I wanted, but it was a hefty $200. However, I ended up being ok with this splurge because it was a long-term purchase that fulfilled my need (or rather, needlet). I also took a few months, a “waiting period,” to be sure it was an intrinsic desire and not a mimetic one.
Mimetic desire is often motivated by the void created when we buy something and then habituate to that item. No longer does the desire drive us, and the momentary dopamine hit of the purchase is long gone.
So one way I quell mimetic desire is simply to make what’s old new again.
Read a book that’s sitting on your shelf (or in your Kindle) that you’ve not yet touched or that is worth a revisit.
Enjoy that egg chair in the backyard that you pined for last year.
Fire up your had-to-have grill to cook up some steaks.
Now when desire grips me for a new bag, a new phone or any new carrot, I can pause before making that purchase. I can give myself a waiting period.
I hope to inspire my kids to realize that sometimes by subtracting, or simply not adding, we multiply our fulfillment.
What’s more, we might better identify what it is that we really want.
Featured image created using Midjourney.