The dare - a holiday from consumerism

Like many of us I've had a sense of doom in the back of my mind for a while. The ever-growing population of the Earth, dwindling fossil fuels on which our entire lifestyle is based, and the looming disaster of climate change. Recently I've done a bit more reading and thinking about all these things, and I'm as pessimistic as ever - I don't think it's in our nature as a society to be able to put the brakes on in time to do anything about it.

This line of thinking can cause one to become a pretty gloomy dinner party guest. Recently I was opining to a friend along the lines that we are wealthy enough as a nation, and that taking a cut in our standard of living would be a small price to pay to avert (or help avert) the coming catastrophes. Perhaps Christmas or stories like the deadly Wal-Mart stampede or Boxing Day sales prompted me to make some remark about our consumer culture. At this point, I was asked if I could myself go for a month without accruing new possessions? This train of thought soon became a challenge - even a dare - and I could hardly refuse after my recent pontification on the subject. 

So for the month of January I will not by any new stuff. The rules are simple. I'm allowed to replace something that breaks, and food and entertainment are acceptable; I must simply forbear from accruing new things. I honestly don't know if this will be easy or hard. I'm a single man with a professional's disposable income and no dependents to look after. Therefore I seldom exercise much thought or restraint when a gadget, computer, DVD, clothing or other item takes my fancy. On the other hand, I don't consider myself to be a man of expensive tastes, nor an avid shopper. So it will be interesting to see how well I do living up to my own anti-consumerism rhetoric on my one-month holiday from the dominant lifestyle of our country.

Here I will keep a log of things I have foregone, or should it happen, failures to live up to the bargain. I fear that at the end the list of stuff I have done without will seem embarrassingly self-indulgent and unnecessary. If so, I will have learned another important lesson.

How long do you think you could go?