Reading books has come back into my life and it’s been such a joy. Currently I’m reading several books at once because depending on my mood, I want to read different things. All but one are non-fiction and are in the personal growth genre. Anyway as I’m still trying to hold strong to the “less stuff” resolve, I’m continuing to read Your Money or Your Life and came upon this great passage:

One of the pervasive assumptions is that growth is good. Our economy depends on growth to survive—and we, as Americans, have absorbed that growth ethic into our own aspirations for our lives. If we have one car, we need two. If we have one pair of pants, we need two; if we have two, we need three. We ignore intellectual, emotional and spiritual growth, having gotten stuck trying to continue to grow physically by adding more and more possessions…This ‘more is better, growth is good’ cultural assumptions breed in us subtle economic prejudices. We judge our own and others’ importance by material yardsticks.

Or in my case if I have three Everlane sweaters, I need five. And that blogger has the new Everlane coat? I need that too. Oh and I really aspire to have a Hermes bag collection like that CRA (Crazy Rich Asian) blogger. When I have that, I’ll be set. Yea rrrriiiiight >.< In my head I know better, but dang if social media doesn’t convince you otherwise. And what makes it worse is that I know I’m part of the system: that I do that to others and it’s not good. Like I said last weekend, ue ni mo ue ga aru.

I think I was feeding into this frenzy because I’ve been very focused on trying to grow my blog so that I can be a “successful blogger” and make a living out of my passion. But I’m starting to see that motivation is drowning me in stuff and on top of that I’m getting a bit too obsessed with the numbers (both for the blog and on instagram) and feel down when I don’t see growth. It’s all feeling very unhealthy, so I’m glad to be able to take a step back and reassess a bit more on where I want this blog to go and what I want to write about. Anyway if you see more reviews after this, know it’s because I ordered things before I had this change of heart and might as well review whatever I try. Also I’m not going to go on a shopping ban (because I tried that for a year and it didn’t work for me), so I’ll probably still be buying things. But I’m hoping it will be for things I really need and not just want.

Also I’m starting to see that I might not be able to make a living out of this blog, and that this will always be just a hobby. And that’s okay. I rather be doing me in a small beans kind of way rather than to morph into a product pushing blogger and not be living by my own values. If that means always having a “real job” so be it. Also I could probably live on a lot less than I do now and be more money conscious. So it’s not about making the money but instead saving the money. I’ll definitely try but man, do old habits die hard.