Achieving Happiness Through Material Things

“Collect experiences, not things.”

“Material things won’t make you happy.”

These are some of the things I am constantly told.

For a few years, I actually went through an extreme minimalist phase. I sticked to bare minimums and had pretty much nothing. I only covered my basic needs. Food, clothing, shelter, and the things I needed for work. Which was not much since I was a soldier. I actually went on years without a cellphone. I purged as much as I could, getting rid of all the things that I had. Funny thing is that it came to a point where every time I got rid of something, it felt like I was getting rid of a part of me. But still I pushed on, since I had to get rid of the "material attachments” I had in my life. Sad to say, the emptier my place was, it was the same with what I felt inside.

But I have to say, people were right when they said you find yourself and discover things when you get rid of things. True enough, I found out that material things are a big factor in achieving happiness. At least for me.

First thing that I understood was that the happiness that I got after buying something was not because I got what I wanted, but it was because of the peace that I felt of not wanting something at that exact moment in time. This is why the happiness of just fulfilling a want is fleeting and highly addictive.

So how do material things bring us lasting happiness?

We have to enable them.

Proper enabling is using material things to bring out the best of something else. This leads us to continuously creating positive experiences that will lead to happiness.

A diagram of achieving happiness through material things.

For functional items, it is easy to understand this. Here is a quick diagram on how I enable the things I have to create an experience that will lead to happiness.

A diagram of achieving happiness through material things.

How about for material things that do not have a specific physical function?

Well, I enable them by attaching a memory, meaning, or reminder to it. Or it can be as simple as appreciating the craftsmanship. All these break the monotony of life’s autopilot and draws out inspiration - Inspiration that enables us.

An example of this is Carlito, my Stormtrooper. Right after my extreme minimalist phase, I decided that I wanted a reminder of my choice to stop my phase. To not take things too seriously and that there should always be a balance.

“Balance ese, balance.”

I want to make it clear that enabling something is to bring out the best in another thing that already exists. So if you go and choose to fill in or project something that is missing, happiness will never be there. By the way, buying something and figuring out how to enable it is still filling out something that is missing.

It's not easy to do. From time to time I still fall into the trap. That's why we have to be really honest with ourselves. We cant go enabling everything we want. It’s just not possible. We have limited resources. And things that are not enabled is just waste. We might as well give it to others who can truly enable it.

Here is something to think about. How much is our time worth? The price that we pay for material things is not really money but a percentage of time in our lives. We spent time to get that money, and we will spend time again by enabling what we will buy. That is why when you think about it, things are really more expensive than they are.

So really, the key here is understanding ourselves. Then we can genuinely identify how we can enable things to use them to create experiences that will help us achieve happiness and live purposeful lives.