Refrain, gain

I have absolutely nothing to write about. It´s probably because the last week has been lacking intelligent challenges (expect for new boardgames) and filled with telly and aimless wandering around the house. Another good reason for disliking holidays: there´s nowhere to go and nothing to do.

Before holidays, though, I was struggling with gift issues. Not because I was unable to decide what to get but whether I should buy stuff at all. I read someone´s writing about anti-materialism and it got me thinking. Of course I´ve been aware of the idea before. It´s true that nowadays people buy stuff mostly because we are used to it and encouraged to do that. If we all just stopped pleasure shopping it would be considered normal, right? Bad things would happen to the economy though.

I wondered what are my very own reasons for shopping. Is it the culture or that ancient instinct of a hunter-gatherer? As for christmas pressies, I think I just genuinely wanted to be nice to my folks after my few-months' absence. However, for many years I´ve been deliberately refusing to browse in shops: a pass-time shared by millions of westen women. It´s not normal, okey, if you don´t NEED anything!

Giving up unimportant shopping (or shopping as recreation) is like giving up fatty foods after having a stroke. Well, it´s not really. (But if you shop hard enough you´ll go bankrupt.) Let´s take another example. It´s like becoming a vegetarian. You know you´re doing the right thing. You might sometimes feel tempted to pop in to a sale and maybe you even fall. But at the back of your head you always know that refraining is not only good for yourself but also good in bigger scale.

Which leads me to a more current topic: chocolate! I have placed a bet on a Chocolate-Free January instead of "Tipaton Tammikuu" which is less relevant in my case. Me and my little sister will stay clear of Karl Fazer and friends for a month. The fallen one will bake a cake for the winner. 

The bottom line in this random writing seems to be that some kind of refraining can be a good mental practise. And usually something good comes out of it.