rules vs mindfulness

I said in my last post that as I lack willpower, I had best have rules. I have been rethinking that after talking to Mags who pointed out to me that as a sociological experiment, rather than trying to go another year, it is more interesting to see the kind of effect (if any) that the year has had on my shopping habits. This let me to think about rules versus mindfulness.

Rules make things easy. You know what the rules are and then you don't need to think, you just follow them as best you can. Last year I didn't really have to ask myself whether a purchase was worthwhile. The times that I broke the rules (except for Kim's b-day present mere days into the year) presented themselves to me as unavoidable rather than as deliberate choices.

Giving up the rules, in contrast, requires a certain kind of attention to the specific context. It requires asking of myself whether something is worth buying-- about the costs and benefits. Yesterday I tried on a hoodie--in the most spectacular shade of pink--which I did not buy. It was made in Canada, so no exploited labour to factor into the costs. It was cotton which unless organic, and this wasn't, has an environmental cost. But the main thing is that its benefit was pretty much nil.

Not that I actually thought about precisely these things. What I did think was that despite its being about the most lovely shade of pink I have ever seen, the last thing I need is another hoodie, especially one designed (as most of them are) for a much younger body. I once would have bought it, for the colour, and even for the imagined possibilities of a slimmer me, and it would have languished in the closet or been worn around the house on weekends. And it would have languished in good company.

The other aspect of mindfulness is developing good habits--a kind of aristotelian excellence applied to shopping--to become the person who doesn't even try on the hoodie and wish she could buy it. To become the person who is not even tempted.

There is a second reason for preferring mindfulness to rules. It would be pretty hard to escape the fact that we live in a world structures by trade relations and pretty naive to think that I could avoid complicity just by buying only second hand stuff (beyond what I put in my mouth). Outside of living in a barter economy, which I don't, every penny I spend, whether at a garage sale, VV or the grocery store is feeding back into the general economy. Anyone who doesn't opt out is complicit. The appropriate response to this is surely not rules, but rather being mindful about where one's money goes. Shopping at my local organic store instead of safeway, buying from 10,000 villages, making sure my coffee is fair trade, supporting the things I think make the world a better place, like the New York Times and Bitch magazine.

And there is a third reason, perhaps. Maybe its ok to think about what makes my life go better. For instance, I really want an mp3 player. It would seriously enhance my life. Or books. While I will continue to buy them second hand and make use of the library, sometimes, there are books that fairly beg to be bought by me.

So no more rules, just better habits.