Embrace the experience

Jumping into the Clutha River. Photo: Si Williams
Jumping into the Clutha River. Photo: Si Williams

Focusing on experiences can help us reduce the size of our consumption footprint, Gina Dempster writes.

One thing I love about Wanaka is that there's not much to buy.

Gillian Dempster
Gillian Dempster

Well, there's a great range of bikes, designer gifts and second-hand treasures, but we're lacking most of the chain stores where you'd buy new sheets, laundry baskets and other household items.

Funnily enough, after a while you find that you're living quite happily without the new thing you thought you needed.

I get satisfaction out of not shopping because the longer I work at Wanaka Wastebusters, the more sense the mantra "reduce, reuse, recycle'' makes to me.

It's easy to put out the recycling and think we've done our bit for the environment, but it's reduction that makes the most difference to the amount of waste we create.

Don't get me wrong, of course recycling is worth doing. As Flight of the Conchords say, "It's not part of the foreplay, but it's very very important''.

But how can we reduce our lust for stuff? We can't just get rid of every shop that tempts us with stuff, and feeling deprived is often a kick-starter for consuming more.

Take diets. We all know they don't work, we just eat more after a diet to make up for missing out. We don't want to set up a shopping diet and binge cycle. But sometimes the joy of buying stuff can be as ephemeral as the joy of eating a cream doughnut: it only lasts as long as the last mouthful (or the time it takes to get your new purchase home). We know it, but we still want to do it.

So how to free ourselves from the addiction of buying more stuff?

Well, science is telling us that spending money on experiences is a better investment in happiness.

Thomas Gilovich of Cornell University published a study in Pyschological Science in 2014 which found that experiences make you happier than possessions, even before you buy them.

Gilovich and his co-authors found that people thinking about purchasing experiences such as ski passes or concert tickets had a higher level of happiness than those who were thinking about spending money on things.

Gilovich has also shown that people get more retrospective pleasure from "experiential purchases'' than material purchases.

The same researchers have also found that the more you talk about your experiences, the more you enjoy them.

And let's face it, the joy of buying material purchases is hard to share. Who else but your partner can really get a kick out of your new couch or expensive dress (and often joy may be the last thing they're feeling about your new purchase).

It makes me think my brother-in-law is a wise man. He never finishes a holiday without planning the next one, maximising the amount of anticipatory pleasure for each holiday (not to mention easing the transition back into working life).

It also made me think about the holidays just gone.

Looking back over the summer, the things I remember are floats down the river and long, lazy picnics beside the lake (which of course are free!). To me that's one of the best things about living in New Zealand; that our beaches and rivers are so stunningly beautiful and so close. And yet we're not looking after them.

The experience of my childhood when you could swim in any river or creek and even drink out of them is no longer a reality. I was shocked to discover that a Ministry for the Environment report disclosed that 61% of monitored rivers are unsafe to swim in. Sixty-one!

I wonder how many tourists who come to New Zealand know that more than half of our rivers aren't safe to swim in. I'm sure their anticipation of their holiday would be somewhat punctured if they did.

Experiencing our landscape and waterways (our "natural capital'' as economists call it) is one of the main reasons tourists come here. Degrading our ecosystem makes that experience less enjoyable.

We're lucky in Wanaka that our beautiful Clutha River is still swimmable, clean and refreshing after these hot summer days. It's a joy to be treasured. We can experience happiness without consumption or waste, dependent purely on our natural eco-system.

As communities, we have to protect and value our waterways and ensure we don't lose them. Otherwise in our drive for economic growth and more stuff, we could end up losing the very experiences that could have made us happier.

Which all sounds a little bit too much like Dr Seuss' The Lorax for comfort.

 Gina Dempster is communications officer at Wanaka Wastebusters

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