Retail therapy is dead — good riddance

Coffee addiction, excessive screen time, junk food binges, and other bad habits are just symptoms of a larger problem

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

They say money can’t buy happiness, but not having money can literally ruin your life. Most of it happens through worry. Will I pay the bills? Will I provide? Will I get the things I want? I want to address the last part.

Money is Emotional Glue

We use money to buy things to tape up emotional fractures. This is commonly known as retail therapy. That cup of coffee in the morning? It’s not an indulgence — it’s what we use to steel ourselves before driving into an unfulfilling job that sucks the joy out of us.

Whether it’s going to the gym to exercise, eating at a restaurant, watching a movie , or a litany of other things we leave the home to spend money to do — these are missing from our daily routines. And there are people having trouble sleeping because they are worried about when they can start spending that money. Because letting go of that money to get more stuff will make us feel better.

Retail is the Emotional Crutch

I am for the continued lockdown of retail spaces — specifically the ones that encourage people to congregate and linger. Retail has become a third space, fifth space, whatever you want to call it. The most successful spaces encourage you to linger, aspire to a new life, offer a social experience, and overall help you escape the life you’re leading. That’s why a store doesn’t just sell a couch, but sets that couch in an ideal living room. Hoping you’ll come back and buy the rest of the stuff to fix your depressing apartment.

Online retailers are not much better, but we’re naturally a little more suspicious of what we see online. We depend on recommendations and reviews more. And the gratification lately has been delayed by slowing Amazon shipment times. Online retail is still retail therapy, but it’s different.

If not retail therapy, then what?

Let’s get back to basics, and perhaps encourage everyone to buy things they need and avoid things they don’t. Sounds overly simplistic, but people are already doing this. They are rediscovering the joys of working with their…