I received the Huabei bill at noon. Since January 23, when I was banned from home, I actually spent 18,000 yuan!
Staying at home, not going anywhere, what have I done, what have I bought?
I posted a circle of friends, expressing shock, and many commenters saw a deafening message: Women are born shopaholics.
Are women born shopaholics? I was reminded of a movie I saw earlier - Confessions of a Shopaholic.
The heroine Rebecca, played by Ella Fischer, is like being kidnapped by a witch's spell. Everything can be related to shopping. When you need an interview, when you want to be on TV, when you go to a party, When there is a discount... Anytime, as long as she passes by the window of the store, a voice will always pop up in her heart: You need it! Wear it and you'll...buy it home to match your...
Then the desire for shopping will quickly occupy the high ground of the brain, like a commander who issues a number to guide her to rush into the store, cosmetics, skirts, pants, coats, silk scarves...all to buy home.
Until all 12 credit cards were maxed out, debt collectors went to the TV station, all the privacy of money was broadcast live in public, and there was no room for all lies about shopping. When faced with losing love, losing friends, and losing her job, she suddenly woke up.
Does this situation feel familiar? That's right, it's the "addict" you often see on TV.
Why is chopping hands addicting?
1. Emotional release:
Buying, buying, buying really makes people happy, and it’s backed by science.
"From desire to fulfillment to new desire, if this non-stop process goes back and forth quickly, it is happiness, and if it is slow, it is pain; but when it comes to a standstill, it becomes the emptiness that makes life rigid, it becomes objectless. , vague and powerless delusions, become mortal anguish - the world is my will, Schopenhauer."
When Rebecca's lie was exposed and her boyfriend asked her how to explain it, she said, "Because when you shop, the world becomes a better place; then when it's not so great, you shop again."
This is a classic shopping addiction symptom. As cigarettes are to smokers, ethanol is to alcoholics.
Shopaholics do not buy products, but emotions. They focus on the behavior and process of "buying". After buying back, they often feel guilty and regretful, but they can't control themselves to buy again to fill the emptiness in their hearts. and without sustenance.
This symptom is basically consistent with the symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder in the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual: Mental Disorders" developed by the American Psychiatric Association.
Therefore, madly chopping hands is a disease and must be cured!
2. Material comparison:
Modern marketing has a method called: manufacturing demand.
In many cases, the needs of consumers seem objective and necessary, but in fact they are deliberately created by merchants. Many of the purchased products are props that customers think meet their needs or positioning, and you may not use them a few times a year.
Then why buy it? Because you need to manage your self-image, you need to satisfy a growing vanity. It is popular in the entertainment industry to establish "personal design", and the workplace also needs "concave style". Not being compared by friends and colleagues is the highest purpose of daily life.
In order to pursue the so-called exquisite life, many people buy a lot of goods that exceed their consumption capacity under the trend of desire. This month you bought a GUCCI, next month I have to buy a LV, otherwise the afternoon tea time in the future will not be able to be good. Sitting together and chatting, even if you have to eat shit for a few months, you still can't pay your credit card.
After a long time, it will naturally become a "shopper" who follows the trend of shopping.
3. Overcompensation:
Overcompensation, also known as overcompensation, is too much compensation, a psychological term. Refers to a real or imagined physical or psychological defect that can be exceptionally corrected through overcompensation. That is, a person's physical or psychological deficiencies cause overcompensatory behavior or "overcorrection."
This factor is explained at the beginning of the film, and the narration has already explained:
"When I was a little girl, things were divided into two categories: the original price and the mother's price. The original price is the thing that will make you shine for three weeks, and the mother's price is the brown thing, which can be used for a lifetime."
Rebecca grew up wearing "brown things" that her mother chose for her, so once she was working and financially independent, all she could think of was to buy everything that would make her "dazzle for three weeks." Because those brand-name handbags and clothes can bring her great psychological satisfaction.
The dangers of shopaholics
1. Excessive shopping will break the balance of payments and affect financial planning
There is a folk saying: "Don't look at the riots now, be careful to pull the list in the future", this sentence also applies to shopping.
At present, many young people are pursuing delicacy, and even go further and further on the road of delicacy, which leads to the emergence of a new social phenomenon: delicacy and poverty. As the name suggests, exquisite poverty means that the balance of payments is broken due to excessive shopping, and the disposable income is getting less and less, so you have to "eat soil" to maintain daily life, and what's more, use credit cards to "support cards with cards". The monthly salary has become a source of income for survival, and it is gone.
When there is a promising job in front of you, do not dare to quit and change jobs, because the first three-month probation period will lead to a sharp drop in income;
When I see others improving themselves in betting clubs, painting, and English courses, I dare not sign up for classes, because the financial situation has already made ends meet;
When I see photos of gourmet travel abroad posted by others in the circle of friends, I dare not buy a plane ticket, because the tight capital chain may break at any time;
When I encounter a good investment project and my friends get the return on investment, I can only "sit and watch the fishermen, and I only have envy of fish"
...
2. Shopping addiction can cause brain changes, irrational and emotional numbness
"Addiction brings about changes in the brain, and the brain adapts to these substances." After a long-term observation of alcohol addicts, American neuroscientist George Cobb believes that people's addiction to things is a long-term brain activity. Everything in the world has addictive characteristics, and the pollution-free but controversial shopping addiction is among them.
Animal studies have shown that addictive behaviors generate the same brain responses as those after drug use.
Normally, our brains release only a small amount of dopamine, but addictive experiences can cause a massive release of dopamine. In an addictive experience, the brain initially converts a large release of dopamine into pleasure, but then the brain turns up the threshold for dopamine uptake. As a result, the brain itself produces less and less dopamine under normal conditions. For addicts, the only way to get dopamine is to reinforce addictive behaviors. And as the brain develops tolerance, the addictive behavior gets worse.
In this process, the function of the prefrontal lobe of the human brain, which is responsible for rationality, is inhibited. So people become irrational, very emotional, extremely lacking in empathy, vulnerable and irritable. People who are addicted to shopping will gradually ignore the changes in the surrounding environment, lose the ability to perceive the changes of the seasons, the spring flowers and autumn moon, and the ability to sympathize with family, friendship and love.
3. How to cure excessive substance dependence?
When we feel the beauty of the world in constant material filling,
When we are trapped in this false and empty desire, we can't extricate ourselves, and we gradually can't control ourselves. The most terrible monster in the world is the desire that is not filled in our hearts.
In "Confessions of a Shopaholic", in the second half of the film, Rebecca became a columnist financial writer "the girl in green scarf", found spiritual sustenance, and saved herself from shopping addiction through writing , life started to go back on track.
In fact, all we want is something that is empty in our hearts: to look better, to feel more respected, to feel important, to feel more confident...
At the end of the day, we want to achieve inner freedom, we want to live in peace with our inner selves. Such freedom and peace cannot be achieved by comparison, by continuous material acquisition, by mocking others and fighting back everywhere.
Instead of being "exquisite and poor" in concave shape, and relying on shopping to obtain a moment of spiritual peace, it is better to learn some real skills and do some truly altruistic things. For matter, try to:
Own it carefully, use it cherishly, give it up bravely, and live simply.
Even if you are really lazy and don't want to do anything, there are at least two things that can save an "addict": reading and running .
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