原文: Can You Tame Your Inner Consumer?

When I came home after my first significant travels, my experience matched that worn-out definition that most call “re-entry culture shock.”

I felt disappointed at how uninterested my friends and family seemed towards my trip. I felt betrayed at how quickly my life-altering experience seemed to slip away.

Years later on another trip, I stepped off the plane in West Africa, a more hardened traveler.

Not this time, I thought confidently, as Africa instantly swallowed me up in its colour and life so indescribably different from that of the West. I would know how to keep myself together this time; to deal with the conflicted feelings of “re-entry” when the time came.

After four months in Benin and Ghana, hitting Cairo and Zürich on my way home weaned me away from the African reality back towards full Western industrial comforts. By the time I arrived in Montreal, not even the fluorescent supermarkets and sparkling bathrooms seemed unexpected.

It turned out that I had matured since that first trip back in the day – I felt a bit of disappointment, but mostly it just felt great to be home after a great trip.

I had learned much and was more motivated to change the world than ever.

The Urge To Spend

At home I had eagerly tossed my traveling clothes in the donation bag and set out to buy a few staple items like a sweater and jeans.

I didn’t feel the need for more – after all, I had always been the “thrift-store queen” among friends, making do with about a third of the wardrobe burdened on others.

What’s more, Africa had taught me a lot about needs. I felt happy to ditch my well-worn threads, and committed myself to becoming even more scrupulous about making the distinction between “necessary” and “unnecessary” clothing items.

What happened next changed the very understanding of myself.

I became excited about fashion; even more than my early high school years, which was the last time I felt aimlessly “shopping” was a viable past-time. After the jeans and sweater I realized I didn’t own dress pants, and that had to be remedied. I threw in some new summer t-shirts as well.

A friend opened a designer consignment store, and I quickly dropped $250 in a little over a week. Then it was a new $100 bikini, a belt, a summer dress, a designer jacket, all of it purchased new at, horror of horrors, the mall.

I was buying something almost every day. And the line between what I “needed” and didn’t was getting hazier.

The Trend Continues

 

Photo by fafoutis

What was worse than the gratuitous purchasing was the attitude I seemed to have adopted towards it: after a couple hours of working on a paper for school, at break time I’d excitedly log on to shoe website and browse for half an hour.

I would casually add things to my cart with little or no intention of buying them; just for the sake of imagining having those clogs or these sandals.

While shopping centers had saddened me immediately after my trip (I had vowed to never let myself slip into that consumer-crazed mindset), two weeks later, I barely resisted the urge to stop by the mall on my way home from the library.

I felt a lack of control over my behaviour and unease at how I didn’t recognize this person.

“Don’t worry about it,” my mother would say, “you’ve spent so many years shopping at Value Village, I think buying some new things evens it out, don’t you?”

Getting Rid Of Stuff

Coming home I knew it would not be possible to live with African simplicity in western society. I had not, however, expected to fall prey to the common western problem of wanting things just because they were there, or more importantly, buying things just because I could.

Having momentarily forgotten the swollen abundance of available products, and the general “if you’ve got the money, you deserve to buy it” western attitude, I was suddenly overcome by the distorted value our society places on having stuff.

For me “that stuff” just happened to be clothing. Friends and family congratulated me repeatedly on getting good deals or good purchases, but inside it all felt wrong.

Moreover, in Africa I had seen it’s possible to live with less than we could possibly imagine.

How could I walk into the store and buy a $130 dress, when that same amount of money would pay for six kids to go to school for a year in Benin? How could justify this, after seeing how my fellow human beings were living, in squalor or filth, and poverty?

How could I spend hours sifting through shoes online when I could use my time and brains to change things, to help those with less, to learn more about what forces had given me so much and they had so little?

Enough Is Enough

One night at dinner it almost became too much for me. I suddenly stopped short of putting a luscious spoonful of rosemary lentil soup with feta cheese in my red wine-stained mouth.

What were my friends in Benin eating for dinner tonight?

I have since learned that this is a struggle that many other travelers returning from developing countries have experienced. Once we know with how little it takes to live, how can we apply these lessons to our lives at home?

We must learn to consume in a way that does not perpetuate economic inequity, while acknowledging the fact that we live in the West and therefore must live within a reasonable western standard.

The challenge for all of us is to find a space where we can balance these two objectives. Where we can take realistic action towards change and let go of any unproductive guilt for having what we have.

The outcome of my somewhat unorthodox “re-entry shock” is sure: it caused me to think.

I re-evaluated my level of self-awareness and became committed to testing out ways to find that balance for myself. This is the real magic of travel: that it finds ways to keep teaching you long after you have come home.

It ensures that you’ll continue to question your ways and the ways of the world, and you’ll try to come to terms with your place in it, even if you never set foot on foreign soil again.

What do you think of the consumerist urge? Share your thoughts in the comments!

译文: 你能驯服你内心的消费欲望吗？

      面对变化，我们必须学会采取符合实际的行动，让任何无用的对于“拥有我们所拥有的”负罪感走开。

      抵抗冲动。

      经过第一次重大的旅行回到家后，我的经历应验了那句老话：“重返的文化冲突”。

      但是我感到非常失望，因为我的朋友和家人似乎对我的旅行不感兴趣。让我的生活发生重大变动的经历这么快就过去，这让我有种被背叛的感觉。

      几年以后，在我的另外一次旅行中，我已经变成了一个更加坚毅的旅行者。我在西非下了飞机。

      这次我没有那么自信，因为非洲的色彩和生活与跟西方是彻头彻尾地不同。我需要知道怎样让自己保持内外一致，怎样来处理相互冲突的“重返”的感觉。

      在贝宁湾和加纳呆了几个月之后，在回家的路上偶然去了开罗和苏黎世，这让我抛开了非洲的现实，重回到了全西方的工业化的舒适当中。到我到达蒙特利尔的时候，连荧光的超市和闪闪发光的浴室都是可期待的了。

      事实证明，自从第一次旅行回来，我变得成熟了——我有一点失望，但总的来说，在经过一次伟大的旅行之后回到家感觉是很棒的。

      我学会了很多东西，而且比以往任何时候都更想去改变世界。

消费的冲动

      回到家以后我充满热情地把旅行服扔进捐赠箱，然后出发去买一些常用的东西，比如一件厚运动衫、牛仔裤。

      我没有再需要更多——毕竟，我是朋友中的“节俭女王”，我的衣箱大约只有别人的三分之一。

      而且，非洲教会了我许多跟需要有关的东西。扔掉自己的旧衣服我感到很开心，并且使自己在区分“必需”和“非必需”的衣物时变得更加谨慎。

      但接下来发生的事改变了我对自己的理解。

      我变得对时尚非常狂热，甚至超过了刚上高中的时候，那时是我最后一次觉得“购物”是一种可行的消磨时间的办法。买了厚运动衫和牛仔裤之后，我意识到自己还没正装裤子，那个必须得弥补上。同样的，我还加了几件夏季穿的T裇。

      我有一个朋友开了间设计师寄卖店，于是我很快在一个多星期里投入了250美元。然后又去商场买了一件100美元的比基尼，又买了一条腰带，一件夏装裙，一件新款夹克，真是恐怖！

      我几乎每天都在买东西。那条介于“需要”和“不需要”之间的界线正在变得越来越模糊。

趋势在继续

      比不合理的购买更糟糕的是我的心态：为了学生的试卷埋头工作了几个小时之后，我会利用休息时间很兴奋地登录上鞋类的网站，浏览上半个小时。

      我漫不经心地往购物车里加东西，但其实根本没有购买意图或者不太想买，只是为了想象一下拥有这些木底鞋和凉鞋是什么样子。

      尽管在我旅行回来后，购物中心让我感到很忧愁（我曾经发誓永远不让自己滑入疯狂消费的理念中），两周之后，在从图书馆回家的路上，去购物中心的冲动让我实在忍不住了。

      我感到对自己的行为失去了控制，为自己失去理智感到不安。

      “别担心，”我妈妈说，“这么多年来你都非常节俭，我想现在买一些新的东西正好平衡一下，对吗？”

不要那些东西

      走进商店里去买一件130美元的长裙，而同样数量的钱在贝宁湾却可以供六个小孩读书，我又怎么可能做得到呢？

      回到家，我知道在西方世界里不可能过非洲的那种简朴的生活。但是，我也不想落入西方的俗套里，因为看到某样东西就去买，或者买东西仅仅是因为买得起。

      暂时忘记了物品的极大丰富，以及西方“如果你有钱，就值得去买”的态度，我过去突然被我们的社会中关于拥有东西的扭曲的价值观所俘虏了。

      对我来说，那些“东西”正好就是衣服。朋友和家人都不停地祝贺我买得很划算或者买了好东西，可是在内心里我却觉得我全做错了。

      而且，在非洲，我见过，人们用比我们所能想象的还要少的东西都可以生活。

      走进商店里去买一件130美元的长裙，而同样数量的钱在贝宁湾却可以供六个小孩读书，我又怎么可能做到？当看到我的同类生活在悲惨、污秽和贫困当中时，怎么来为自己辩护？

      我怎么能花费数个小时流连于鞋类网站，而本可以将这些时间和我的智慧用于改变某些东西，去帮助那些拥有更少东西的人，去知道更多关于是什么力量使我拥有这么多东西，而他们却拥有的这么少？

够了就好

      有天晚餐的时候我已经吃得很饱了。端着一匙香甜的迷迭香扁豆汤和羊乳酪送到沾着红酒的口边，突然我停下了。

      我想到，在贝宁湾的朋友今晚的晚餐吃的是什么呢？

      这也是很多其他的朋友在从发展中国家旅行回来之后都会经历的一场挣扎。一旦我们认识到用少得可怜的东西就可以生活，我们怎么能坦然面对回家后的生活呢？

      我们所有人所面临的挑战是在两者之间找到一个平衡。在这个平衡点上，我们能对变化采取符合实际的行动，并且让抛开任何对于“拥有我们所拥有的”无用的负罪感。

      我的有点非正统的“重返的冲突”的收获是：它让我开始思考。

      我重新评价了自己的自我认知水平，开始试图找到方法来使自己平衡。这真是旅行的一个奇妙之处：它在你回到家很长时间以后，仍然不断地教会你一些东西。

      既使你以后永远都不会再踏进国外的土地，它保证你继续质疑自己的状况以及世界的状况，然后你会学会容忍自己的地方的生活方式。