Mindfulness as an alternative to impulse purchasing

For the last few weeks, I've been stalked by some mysterious gadget.  It haunts my thoughts but I don't even know what it is. 

It might be Steve Jobs fault.  A couple weeks ago he introduced new ipods and showed off a futuristic iTV gadget.  Those looked cool!

It might be leftover interest in GPS tracking devices I was looking at a few weeks ago.  It may even be some unsettled desire from that camera I bought earlier in the summer.  I've still got a hole that I didn't quite fill.  I'm not sure what I'm after, but I find myself checking Gizmodo for the perfect new, new thing.

I've got a few other influences countervailing the impulse to spend.  A bunch of us have adopted a goal to track what we spend for a week.  It's a simple way to increase awareness about where our energy is going.  Money is a store of exchangeable value, but we get it by exchanging our life energy for it.  I keep thinking, "How crazy is it that I'm dying to part with my money, for some mystery gadget I probably don't even need".   I've also been reading some books about buddhism and meditation and those have me trying to be mindful of my thoughts: just hanging back and observing.  Its funny how a spending compulsion sweeps you up.  By being mindful of your thoughts, you can feel the drive to consume change the way you are thinking moment by moment.
 
I'm enjoying "hanging out" with the spending compulsion so much that the entertainment I'm getting from introspecting is starting to replace the desire for a new thing.  Try it yourself:  consider tracking what you spend for a week, and the next time you get swept up with a craving for the new, new thing, hang back and be mindful of where the desire is coming from.  You might find that learning about your compulsion is more rewarding than the thing you thought you wanted.

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