MINIMALISTS EXPLAIN: you might be UNHAPPY because of materialism

I feel like most of us have caught on to the idea that just because if you have money or all the things that you could want, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be happy in the end or mean that you have a happier marriage, happier kids, or a happier life. But there is still some part of us deep down inside that feels like we need certain things, certain stuff to make us and our family happy. If I'm being honest, this is just a tug of materialism. But what might be helpful is for us to actually look at the definition of materialism. Materialism is the preoccupation with or stress upon material rather than intellectual or spiritual things. Basically, we put more value or our fulfillment in life on stuff rather than our growth, our purpose, and anything else that is important in our life. So we've never been super materialistic people. Sure, there were times as a married couple where we would buy some things thinking that it would make us happier, but it really was just a distraction from what really mattered, which to us is the simple things, family, and spending time together. But I will share that there was a time where I personally was materialistic. So this lifestyle change came later in life. But there was a time where I wanted to keep up with the Joneses, where I would buy things that I didn't even really love, but everyone else was wearing it. Do you remember when Michael Kors was huge? Well, I bought quite a few watches from them from the company. I think I had four at one point. Then I became super into Invicta, then every other brand. I don't even remember what the G-Shock watch is. I had this insane watch collection because everyone was into that at that time. I also had started to collect designer bags. However, I always gravitated towards the same bag. So it's things like that. So there was a time in my life where I was so broke. I was in college. I was working two jobs. I worked at an elementary school part-time, and then I worked at the gym part-time. And all of that working around a college schedule, I would still use my money on things that I didn't need. Materialistic things, clothes, things that would make me look the part. And believe it or not, that's who I used to be. I used to care about all these things. Makeup, jewelry, clothes, shoes. And super embarrassing. It came to the point where I had a lot of gold. I had gold earrings, gold necklaces, real gold, gold bracelets, gold rings, toe ring, all of that. And it got to the point where I was like, you know what? I'm drowning in these expensive things, these materialistic things, but I am broke. I need to pay my car insurance. And little did I know that was an example of what led me to be more mindful of my purchases. But it came to the point where I was like, I need to sell all of my gold so that I can afford my car insurance. So I did. I went to several different places, and I sold all of my gold. And I got enough to pay for car insurance for six months, and I paid for gas. And that got me through. So yeah. So I recently found an article from the Journal of Consumer Affairs showing what impacts materialism in children. So most of the factors are things that you would expect. So where do they go to school? What are the messages being shared with them on TV, on ads from their peers? But there was one stat that really threw me for a loop. So contrary to what most people think, what they found were children in lower income families were more materialistic than children from higher income families. And in addition to that, peer influence plays a role, but it's not from the peers telling them or showing them they need stuff. It is the insecurity that comes with not having the thing. And you can tie that to just the insecurity of growing up and not being able to have things that you want or things that you see other people have. Growing up as a kid, I did not have a lot of things. My family did not have a lot of money. I was not able to get everything that other people had. I think I could say I had a lot of wants, but I got used to not being able to have the thing. I don't know if I could say that I feel I grew up materialistic because of that. But what I do know is that I put a huge emphasis on success. So for me, success was being able to not need anybody, not need anything. Growing up, I would have a lot of things thrown in my face if someone got me something or someone took care of something that I needed that cost money. There was a lot of hanging something over my head. So growing up, I was like, I don't want to need anybody. I don't want anything held over my head. I don't want to have to feel like I owe anybody anything. And so making sure that I was successful was such a huge part of my life, making sure that I had a good career, making sure that I made enough money, making sure that I achieved the highest thing. And so in some ways, and I don't necessarily think of all of those things as a negative thing, but it did impact my relationship with my wife and has impacted home life, just life at home in general. There were many times where my wife could feel just the weight of the world on me because I didn't feel like I was being successful or I didn't feel like I could get the things that we needed or I didn't feel like I was measuring up somehow. And when I'm in that state of mind, it's hard for me to just be happy being home. It's hard for me to just be happy around my kids. My kids probably could sense that something's wrong with dad. My wife obviously can sense that. And even though I won't blatantly say it, sometimes my family can feel it. So I can say that just the grip of materialism in some ways has definitely showed up in my life as I grew up with very little to now being able to take care of myself, but still having some of that old baggage that follows me around. When we first became minimalists, we stopped worrying about having the newest and best items. And that went for everything from electronics to little household items to just anything. And then we just started to focus our energy more on, we were parents at that time already, so focus on just parenthood, marriage, just things that actually matter to us. So this started us to figure out a little bit more like what can we do to have a happier family? And I know happiness is not everything, but how can we have a happier family? So there were a lot of focus on all those other things that we thought would fill our lives. So one of those was we started to spend more time with extended family. So what that means, obviously we would go and see my grandmother, spend more time with her and have the kids see her more. We would see Carleen's family a lot. We would try to go out of our way to go see her dad who lives far away. One of the things that Carleen told me that was special for her growing up was that she spent so much time with her cousins. Like she had a lot of time hanging out with them, doing family parties. And that's not something that I had. I only had one cousin and though we we care for each other, we loved each other, I just didn't spend as much time with her. Now that my kids, like they have dozens of cousins, it's great. So they get to spend more time with them. And that is something that I feel like has brought more joy and happiness to our family than just, you know, all the other stuff that we could get distracted by. So another thing that changed when we became minimalist is, first of all, we had two kids at that time and I was already buying them like everything. Everything that the internet said we needed, all the toys, all the cute things, all the light up. I stopped doing that very early on and realized that kids don't need much. They just need a couple of things that they love. So now that we've been living this way for many years, first of all, my youngest son who's always home with me, he has the most amount of toys, but we actually have a subscription that is Lovevery. You might have seen them around. They are amazing. They have quality toys that get delivered every couple of months and they're wooden, they're so durable, and even the, they're not all wooden. Some of them are just regular plastic toys, but even the older kids play with them and they're enjoyed for a long time. So we do that for him. And then the older kids, we actually don't buy them toys. They get things on holidays, birthdays, Valentine's Day from grandparents. So we actually don't have to get them anything. Yes, for Christmas, we buy them things, but that's probably it. Like even on their birthdays, we don't really get them presents because they're already getting presents from everyone else. So, you know, we worry more about getting them together, like having a little party. So we don't really prioritize stuff. Say hi to the camera. Say hi. This is Zion. Say hello everyone. Another thing that was a habit that we built is that we stopped relying on just buying expensive stuff to show our love for one another. So we started to see one of the things that is very important is just quality time. And though we had been together for a while, that just slips off everyone's radar. You just get into the rut of like, I got to take care of our kids. I got to take care of our home. I got to take care of the family. So me working, but time together is extremely important. And so we started to do more date nights and we started to be more intentional about the way that we loved each other. I know for my wife, her love language is acts of service. Mine is not. And it doesn't come natural for me to just want to clean up or, you know, or think ahead, be proactive on what, what would be something that she would do that I could do that would just make her life a little bit easier. So those are the things that we had to think about a little bit more, right? Like we, mine's physical touch and she had to think about how can I be more physical touch for him? It's great because we learned that it's not about changing each other. It's about just how can we make our relationship more fulfilling for one another? I think that's just another habit that was developed because we just had more time and space to think about that. So another study found that materialistic people are less happier than their peers. So they experience fewer positive emotions. They're less satisfied with life and they suffer higher levels of anxiety, depression, and substance abuse, which is pretty interesting. So from a science perspective, yes, if you have less stuff, if you own less stuff, you're more likely to be happy. You're more likely to probably be happier with your family, but that doesn't mean that you can't have stuff or enjoy stuff because that's, that's not our message. Our message isn't what can you do to have less for the sake of having less? That's, that's not it. That's not minimalism. Say minimalism. We do have things that we want. We do have things that we eventually would like to get, but it's not the thing that dictates whether or not we enjoy our life or are happy with our life. I just love that now we, we definitely realize that the key to having a much more fulfilling life, having more joy, isn't stuff. It's this, it's our family, it's the people, it's the experiences, the relationships, everything that truly matters at the core of life. That is, that is what matters. And Papi's blocking mommy's head. So we love you guys and we will see you in the next video. Bye.