Consumption
This whole period has made me really rethink my consumption. What I need vs. what I have.
I think I already mentioned this but the first thing that clicked was the realisation of how much less I need to eat than I was eating. Whether it’s 3 meals a day or 2, or 5 snacks, there’s way more food out there (and in here at home) than I could ever eat. Once I started portioning things up according to this new assessment of what I needed I’d start marking things on the boxes - this box of cereal is gonna last 3 weeks, I can make 12 days’ worth of sandwich lunches with this loaf of bread, things like that. It’s just remarkable. I don’t know why but before I felt under a lot of pressure to eat everything, all at once. Related to this is I have to find other ways to deal with things. I can’t just eat when I’m lonely or bored or a bit down or frustrated - there’s no point, I don’t need to, it’s counter to my goals and my health. So I have to find other ways to move through those feelings, other things that I can face doing, tasks that seem a bit kinder to do. (The only thing I am doing still is if I’ve got a particularly hard or loathsome chore I’ll queue it up before meal-time so I can eat and relax afterwards as a motivator!)
Related to this is a sense of abundance in what I’ve been purchasing. Right at the beginning of when I started eating what I needed rather than wanted, it hit me how much cheaper it was going to be to sustain that eating pattern, so I set a goal of only spending x-amount per day and buying maybe 3 or 4 things. This was before lockdown, so even though I can’t always get the things I want on the day I want them, I’ve been able to switch to other options. There are only so many mealtimes to fill. And because of lockdown I’m not eating out at all or getting takeaways so I’m cooking for myself, and this saves me exponentially more than just changing up what I’m buying at the shops. So then I’ll cook for myself but in batches, rather than eating double or triple portions now I’ll have leftovers for two or three days; rather than using up entire items of veg or whatever I’ll use a portion of something and things that used to do me only one meal will do me three. It’s amazing how much further things go. It’s another way of feeling abundant and there’s always something to look forward to.
And that takes me on to consumption in general; because I’m home, around my stuff all the time, aware of all the things I don’t get around to doing and the books I don’t get around to reading. Life itself has gotten simpler. I’m usually able to substitute in something I’ve already got for something I’m craving to buy. I keep a rolling list of desireables and at the end of the month I can allocate a portion of savings to purchasing some of those things, if I still want them. I try to keep other little non-food purchases to a minimum so they’re small and not happening every day. I’m so set up here with things to do that I can’t imagine needing to buy much at all - life has become about doing rather than having, or even better, just being.