How To Stop Wanting More

Someone recently asked me to do a video on the never ending chase for more and how to stop wanting more, to constantly make upgrades, and spend money. She actually phrased it as an issue with “being a perfectionist.”

If everything wasn’t of a certain quality, she felt as though her decluttering process had somehow failed.

I think that more than perfectionism this tends to be an issue of discontentment. The question is, why do we always want more and when does the chasing end?

Stop Wanting More: Discontentment Isn’t Always Bad

Before I start shredding the concept of discontentment I’d like to point out that there are appropriate and healthy times to be discontent. 

For example, if you were living in a sewer, unless you needed to find acceptance in that location for survival, discontentment is a totally healthy and natural response to that situation.

If you’re living in an abusive or dangerous environment, discontentment is a healthy response to that and is likely your brain’s way of indicating to you that a change needs to be made. 

I personally don’t believe that it’s “bad” to want things and have goals and plans for things in your future as long as it’s not interfering with your current level of life satisfaction.

We’re not talking about the healthy kinds of discontentment today, we’re talking about the other kind. The kind that keeps you feeling like what you have is never enough. That it’s never good enough and that you need to have more in order to be happy and successful. 

Or the mindless droning for more on autopilot. 

Desire And Discontent Are A Vicious Cycle

I see desire and discontent as a self-feeding cycle. We’re discontent so we desire and we desire so we’re discontent. ♽ 

We feel an initial lacking. 

And that lacking leaves us susceptible to desire—often of things we hadn’t even considered prior, and that has absolutely nothing to do with the source of the lacking feeling. 

Suddenly, our discontentment shifts from that initial lacking to the lacking of the newly desired thing. 

Here’s an example: you’re bored (i.e. lacking in mental stimulation)–> so you fixate on something you want (let’s say, you desire a dress). Life would be so much cooler if you had that dress. → Then you feel discontent again- this time because you don’t have the dress.

So, you buy the dress but next time you get that sensation of lacking- you won’t fixate on the dress you already own- you’ll desire something new. And so the cycle goes.

Thoughts On Discontentment

If this whole paradox of discontent and desire sounds familiar it’s because it isn’t new. The entire religion of Buddhism is based on ‘The Paradox of Suffering’ and the idea that suffering is inevitable and that it’s caused by desire. 

Buddhist principles are based largely on learning how to ditch the desire and be comfortable with discomfort (or the much less pleasant term, “suffering”).

So, we try to shove ‘stuff’ in the lacking void to make us feel better. 

About a month ago, I shared this video on ‘How To Adapt To Living With Less”, and I talked about what the author of the book ‘Flow’, Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced “chik·sent·mee·hai·ee“), had to say about desires.

His stance is that we have biological desires and social desires and that discontent happens when we allow those desires to rule rather than using our handy-dandy-special-human-skill of controlled consciousness (i.e. self-control, not just over your actions, but over the way you think and prioritize. Placing those higher priorities and values above the desires). 

Not doing the thing that part of our brain wants us to do because the more intentional part of our brain with goals and stuff says “no”.  

The Root Of The Discontent

Ok, cool, so I’m basically saying to have self-control and stop wanting stuff, right? Well, in a sense, but there’s more to it.

In order to be more effective, it helps to understand the root of the initial discontent. 

Boredom

For example, boredom. It happens, we all experience it but a good question is “what do we do about it”. 

There has been a lot of research showing that boredom is actually a good thing. Veritasium made a pretty compelling video about the benefits of boredom and what we’re giving up when we disallow it. 

For example, studies show that our most creative thoughts and altruistic acts tend to spring from moments of boredom. Changing your stance on boredom could be a barrier to general discontent and the desire for more. 

I find that when I’m bored and fidgety, I naturally notice things around me that I want to change. Maybe they’ve been there for a long time and are totally acceptable but now that I’m bored they nag at me. 

“My bedside tables are too green…they shouldn’t be that green.”

Misaligned Expectations

Actually, talking about how things should or shouldn’t be, brings me to another cause for initial discontent, misaligned expectations.

This can stem from so many sources. For example, “My parents had a lot of money. What I have will never be good enough until it matches or surpasses what they had.”

Ok, maybe that one has a lot of baggage but it’s not that far off from the truth for many people. The idea of keeping up with someone is a social struggle that isn’t rare by any means and in any demographic. 

A while back, I shared some of my own struggles with this as a YouTuber in this Instagram post. I talk about how I occasionally catch myself being discontent now that I’m sharing my space publicly. 

This little voice in my brain chimes in, saying that something could be better? My throw pillows could be nicer, my plant pots could be more stylish, or, as I said in this post “are my salt and pepper shakers really “video ready”?

The best thing you can do for this is to Increase mindfulness and get out of your head. Sometimes I’ll verbally tell myself “no” which has become a little weird but it also works. “No, what I have is enough”. 

The important thing to realize is that “enough” always has and always will be relative. I like the way the author of ‘Flow’ puts it:

“When Cyrus The Great had ten thousand cooks prepare new dishes for his table, the rest of Persia had barely enough to eat. These days, every household in the “first world” has access to the recipes of the most diverse lands and can duplicate the feasts of past emperors. But does this make us more satisfied?”

Perspective.

Perfectionism

Now, perfectionism is a tough one because true perfectionism is detrimental and a very unhappy way to live. 

I think that when most people say they’re a perfectionist, it’s not really an issue of perfectionism so much as a more common ‘misalignment of expectations’ like we just talked about.

Perfectionism is a delusion and I can say this without hesitation because I used to live in that delusion and it made me miserable. 

There were years when I couldn’t sustain a healthy relationship because no relationship ever maintained its perfection. It made me come off as narcissistic and controlled my life for a long time.

Being a perfectionist is nothing to brag about and I think that as a culture- just like “busyness” we should de-glamour the word “perfectionist”. 

To be totally clear- because I know a lot of people have misconceptions about this- minimalism is not at all related to perfectionism. 

I actually have an entire blog post that I’ll probably do a video on someday called “Is Minimalism Basically Perfectionism?” where I break down how minimalism is the opposite of perfectionism in some pretty key ways. 

An example of wanting more as a result of being discontent due to perfectionism would be if nothing in your home is ever good enough- so you get the desire for this new thing and it’s likely not good enough either. And the cycle continues in various areas over and over again for no real reason. 

It’s not that you’re effectively upgrading your space, it’s more of fixation and inability to relax and enjoy what you have. It’s constant discontentment.

Why is this a thing?

Matt D’Avella has a video where he interviews Dr. Rick Hanson (who I’m a huge fan of and have mentioned many times myself), author of ‘Hardwiring Happiness. He asked, “What do you think is the biggest factor for most people’s discontent?, to which Dr. Hanson replied, “greed”.

I’m not saying that this is an untrue assumption but I do believe that there’s more to it than that. To me, “greed” indicates something deviant which indicates something intentional. I think most of the time, we don’t even realize this desire for more is happening. 

He does go on to say something that sounds much more likely to me- that it’s a “biologically-based delusional craving.” He said, “that auto-craving is a good strategy to keep animals alive including early humans in really harsh conditions. But today, it creates a disconnect.”

As Csikszentmihalyi says in ‘Flow’ regarding what he calls “social desires”:

“As long as we respond predictably to what feels good and what feels bad, it is easy for others to exploit our preferences for their own needs.”

I.e. modern-day marketing and sales. 

So, What Can We Do About This?

1. As Csikszentmihalyi recommends, you can practice self-directed consciousness- i.e. self-control, strengthened with mental practices and mindfulness.
2. As Dr. Rick Hanson suggests in the remainder of his interview with Matt D’Avella, you can internalize that you truly are safe and have what you need regarding 1) safety, 2) satisfaction, and 3) connection.
3. Use voodoo methods of altering your behavior or your results. Some of the things I mention in this video on ‘How to Stop Bringing In Clutter’. Such as, developing a practice of ‘wish listing items for a period of time before following through with a purchase.

In general, when you want to stop wanting more it comes down to your thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors. So what do you think? Can we dampen our drive for more and our general discontentment? How would that look?