Remember when you got that new toy, and you were so happy you wouldn't take your hands off of it, and after a month you barely notice it sitting alone in the corner of your room, along with all the other discarded toys. At this point, it's time to buy yourself a new toy to replicate the same feeling, and like a heroin addict, you will do anything that's necessary to get what you want. Isolating yourself from luxuries and breaking free from needing a constant stimulus from luxury items can help you find longer lasting joy from within yourself. Aside from causing personal damage, materialism and depending on luxuries feeds economic demand for unnecessary items, which has a devastating effect on the planet. .
When the newest version of the iPhone comes out every other month, and people line up for hours in the cold to get their frozen hands on the item they have been dreaming about for months, it sends an unwanted message to the corporate fat cats at Apple that puts dollar signs in their eyeballs. By constantly buying luxuries such as the iPhone, an overpriced phone that is not necessary for living in any way, you are pushing the demand for that product higher. In turn, the corporation that makes those goods increases production in order to meet the demand you produce. This increase of supply means that more of our precious natural resources are going to be used needlessly; this also means that there is going to be more pollution to the land and the air, which we need for survival. Is it really worth it to burn through our natural resources and taint our environment that is necessary for our survival for luxuries that we can live without? We are whizzing through the earth's natural resources faster than we need to, because of our need for luxuries. Abolishing our desire for luxuries means that we are able to live more sustainably, and make more efficient use of our finite resources.
