Being Not Having

The sudden collapse of the global financial system was as unexpected and rapid as the collapse of the Berlin Wall. The good news is that we can use the downturn to refocus ourselves and find true happiness and meaning.

The past 30 years have been a shop-till-you-drop, credit-fuelled consumer binge. We all desire to acquire more and more regardless of the consequences on ourselves, our families or our communities.  This is very bad for our physical, mental and spiritual health - few of us don't know someone affected by depression, anxiety and substance abuse (booze and drugs).

But following the collapse of the World financial systems means our desire to acquire more and more is unsustainable.  Time for cold turkey. In the short term, as with any addicts cleaning up their act, there will be pain. At the most extreme, as recession bites there will be unemployment, which will be depressing for hundreds of thousands.

For millions of others there will be anxiety about job security. And yet within quite a short time, as our values begin to change, I predict we will start to feel a whole lot better.

When you stop to think about it, you have learnt to confuse real needs with wants: you do not really need an awful lot of what you buy, you want it. A real need is for things like emotional intimacy or to feel emotionally secure; a new flat-screen TV or a conservatory are wants stimulated in us by advertising and the desire to keep up with the Joneses.

Property is at the heart of our confusion of needs and wants. Take kitchens. Many of us have spent tens of thousands on “improving” ours, yet what do we really need from it? A cooker for cooking, a fridge to keep things cold, clean flat surfaces and somewhere to wash up. Likewise, most of us have houses larger than we truly need and have paid beyond what we can afford to live in more prestigious areas.

In our new financial environment, we can start counting our blessings. If property prices plummet, we will not care — rather than living in an investment vehicle, homes are vital components of our existence.

We will also rethink our work lives. Nearly all the increase in family income in the past 30 years came from working longer hours and women joining men in the workforce. At last we will see that if you spend less, you do not need to earn so much, so can work less. Those with small children will start thinking twice about working such long hours, or if one partner is made redundant, think: “Actually, let’s just make do with less money and I will enjoy looking after the nippers.”

Hopefully false values will be replaced by the pursuit of intrinsic pleasures. Interest, enjoyment and the stimulation of a real challenge will become paramount: things are done for their own sake, not simply to please anyone else. At work we may put promotion prospects and salary rises second to what you find really interesting. Wherever possible, we may be looking for work that improves the state of your mind — not just the state of our bank balance or the index of our professional ambitions.

Cutting down on Having, we can focus on Being. As we recover from the insanity of trying to possess more and more, our brains and body chemistry will rapidly change for the better. We will no longer be jammed in a permanent state of readiness for fight or flight by high levels of the stress hormone cortisol. As you spend more time with your partner, your children and our intimate friends, our levels of the love hormone oxytocin will rise. Levels of the depression chemical serotonin will normalise.

Long before the credit crisis, downsizing (working fewer hours, seeking less competitive jobs) was already mushrooming among the middle-aged.

The truth is that we have been living through a crazy time in our history and we always suspected it. We should be grateful that the credit crunch is going to vaccinate us against the consumerist madness and that, nationally and individually, we are going to replace it with authentic personal fulfilment