Gaurav Mishra explains why he’s given away everything he owns. Photography Amit Chakravarty
On July 27, I gave away everything I had to five strangers. When I say everything, I do mean everything – furniture, electronics items, books, DVDs, – all the accumulated acquisitions of an intellectual yuppie.
I also gave away the life I had built over the last six years. It was a perfect life, with a fast-track corporate career, and a sea-facing house in Cuffe Parade, a short walk away from office.
I’m in month six of my year-long experiment in why we choose to consume, or not.
We derive our identity (and our happiness) basically in four ways — from the things we own, from the experiences we have, from the people we relate to, and from the meaning we create. These four elements are arranged in a “hierarchy of identities” that is not only different for each one of us, but also changes for each one of us over time.
When I passed out of IIM Bangalore six years ago, and had some money for the first time, buying and owning things were important to me, if only to prove to myself that I could afford to. So, I set up a full household, acquired costly tastes, ate out five nights a week, and played host the other two.
Then, one day, I realised that I had run that race (with myself) and it had left me tired. I had already bought all the things and experiences I wanted, and even some I didn’t really want. I couldn’t really buy what I wanted anymore, because the things I wanted now could not be bought. My hierarchy of identities had changed; creating meaning, relating to people, and having life-changing experiences were more important than owning things. So, I decided to stop buying things I didn’t need, go off consumption for a year in the hope that a year of austerity would cleanse my soul.
The original intention of the experiment was to spend a year from March 23 without buying anything that was not a necessity. I deliberately avoided defining a necessity because one of the most interesting aspects of the experiment for me was to discover what I thought of as a necessity. However, the rule of the thumb was that apart from basic groceries household and personal care items, not much else was a necessity. Which meant no car, no household help, no eating out, no movies, plays or concerts (unless they were free), no clothes, accessories or gadgets, no books or music, no television or newspapers. But I was allowed to consume what I already had.
Soon, I realised that even though I didn’t miss buying things, I did miss eating out on a date, or meeting up with friends at a coffee shop, or watching a play or a music concert. Consumption is the context in which most of our social interactions happen and, by going off consumption, I had made it difficult for my friends to meet up with me. I tried to invent new contexts: we cooked for each other, threw house parties (including all-night movie marathons), met up for free screenings of foreign films, or for a walk along the sea. It was unusual, and it was often fun, but, eventually, my friends tired of such simple pursuits, even if I didn’t. Thankfully, I had my blog, and it became the context in which I met new people and made new friends.
Then, three and a half months into my experiment, I realised that it was not enough to not buy things that I didn’t need, I needed to shed some more layers from my over-constructed identity. So, I took a year off from work, to do research on social media and teach at Georgetown University in Washington DC, and, fascinated with the idea of a life that fits into a backpack, decided to give away almost everything I owned.
I made an announcement on my blog that I would give away all my belongings to one reader of my blog, the one who wrote the most interesting story about what they would do with my stuff. More than 20 people wrote in, each story more fascinating than the other. In the end, I gave away my things to five people instead of one, so that all of them got what they really wanted, and none of them was burdened with what they don’t need.
What is left with me fits into five bags instead of one, so I’m still far away from my ideal of a life that fits into a backpack, but it’s a beginning, at least.
You can follow Gaurav Mishra’s blog, The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption, at www.gauravonomics.com/offconsumption.
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