Do expensive items increase our self worth?

I live in Geneva and I love this city. It is a global city, a financial center and worldwide center for diplomacy due to the presence of numerous international organizations.

You can find here world’s best brands, the tastiest dishes in the most expensive restaurants, the highest standards of hotels and so on. High quality, high prices, expensive cars and rich people.

People here (actually not only here) work a lot and usually stay more than eight hours a day at work thinking that’s what they need to do. Because they work a lot, they expect compensation for their overtime. They buy expensive cars, Louis Vuitton bags, the latest iPhone, Christian Louboutin shoes Hermes‘ belts etc. to show coworkers, colleagues, friends and even family “Yes, I have it. I work hard and I can afford it”.

And there would be nothing wrong or strange with it despite one fact: In most cases, people don’t buy those fashionable and expensive things because they really like or need them. They explain their excessive consumerism, their stressful work or overtime and they need them to “relax”. The compulsive purchases allow them to discharge all the tension.

Another explanation is that thanks to those things other people admire, envy or simply like them.

My friend recently told me “I buy all those expensive things because I feel pressured doing so living here. ” Why can she afford them and I don’t?! At the end, we both work equally hard.

But this is the wrong approach!!!

First of all, believe that your clothes and gadgets will not make you better, smarter or happier! All stuff we own, positions, titles - these are attributes that give us credibility. We should use them consciously and remember that these are just tools, not conditions of our well-being. People build their own self-esteem on what they own and not on who they actually are!

And if one day you lose everything - your house, work, all those expensive bags - you will only be YOU.

Do you think you could interest people with your personality?

Do you think your friends would still like you?

Don’t assign objects, positions at work, or titles of greater value than they should have, they are just tools.

Minimalism teaches you the distance to possess, wisely buy and use. It simplifies and does not complicate.

People buy not because they like it or they really want something. People buy because they want to belong to a group, they want to please others.

But WHY?

They buy to raise their value, prove their status. For sure not to find the meaning of life, to build a lasting relationship or to achieve a valid goal.

Everyone has its affairs, problems, life, and those people who are really successful do not penetrate others by analyzing them through the prism of having a big house or a fast car.

Always remember: Treat money as a tool to fulfill your dreams and not as a condition for others to like you.