Bringing Awareness to Consumption: Results Part I

On the first day I went to a clothing store to return some clothes and do a little shopping. I bought a few items without much attention to the criteria and when I got home realized I didn’t really need them. Not a great start to non-accumulation. They also didn’t fit. That’s the double whammy. I didn’t try them on in the store because I was trying to do too many things in too little time. But by mismanaging my time in this way I now have to take an extra trip back to the store to return the clothes.

Another journal entry detailed my trip to the grocery store. While I certainly bought more food than we need to survive, I was more present in considering completely extraneous purchases. I was, as usual, in a hurry (or maybe I’m just conditioned to always feel hurried.) This caused asteya towards the store employees as I put things back in the wrong place, knowing they would have to re-stock it properly; I was stealing their time. I acknowledged to myself that if I could simply focus on only the shopping rather than what I needed to get to next, I wouldn’t feel as though I didn’t have time to put things back myself.