Most people dream of unclouded happiness, eternal love, an attractive appearance, an inspiring and high-paying job—all of which are overly superficial aspirations toward dreams that seem significant to them.
In short—a life that others would envy.
Social media and our consumer culture constantly fuel this false ideal of happiness. It is as if the meaning of the truly important things in life is fading against this backdrop of what appears to be significant to humanity, and people feel increasingly confused and unhappy—because the modern world emphasizes precisely these shallow aspirations for progress.
Big corporations invest billions to convince you that you need the product featured in their ad campaigns—the X phone you don’t yet own, the more luxurious car because it reflects your high social status—or that you aren’t perfect enough by the standards of the latest Vogue cover, you don’t have boobs like Zlatka’s—and for that, let’s thank Dr. Enchev on behalf of the entire Bulgarian “VIP” crowd.
Magazines, newspapers, digital campaigns, the media, stories—and now even brainwashed people, the so-called “influencers”—spread targeted messages and influence decision-making processes to create an artificial bubble in which you yourself are a cog in the wheel of supply and demand.
By invading your personal space and probing your dreams, this machine seeks to control your most intimate thoughts, feelings, and emotions in order to make you dependent on things that, in reality, have no significance in life.
Otherwise, I love marketing and understand how it works—not because I majored in it in college, but because I consider myself a target of marketing, and I find it incredibly interesting to engage with it and constantly balance my behavior as a consumer through the lens of marketing, but what I’ve realized is that this consumer-driven world drains me way too much, and that can sometimes go beyond what’s healthy.
Modern culture is giving rise to more and more madness and leading humanity toward progressive mental burnout as a result of the hours spent scrolling, tweeting, chatting, and so on; it encourages a painful idealism accompanied by severe depression, low self-esteem, and a sense of dissatisfaction with life, as well as a constant pursuit of high achievements that, in reality, have no real significance.
The truth is that the modern world creates an artificial living space and a beautiful illusion that we all blindly trust, and which ultimately fosters obsessive behaviors and a drive to acquire things rather than moments.
But how can we live happily when we are faced with so many possibilities and choices?
How can we be less intangible in this material world?
It took me years to truly understand what makes me happy and nearly a lifetime to try to put it into practice, but I came to realize a long-neglected theory about emptiness as the fundamental equation of happiness, and very soon, my call for spontaneous change came naturally.
My inner journey began about a month ago. It was a month in which I radically changed my way of thinking and began to transform my life to such an extent that I could make sense of the big picture and fit my life into the larger puzzle. Can material possessions truly make you happy, or is that a notion imposed by society itself?
It all started on a beautiful Sunday, when I mustered the courage to grab a few empty bags and get rid of everything I didn’t need—from my closet, my home, and my soul.
Believe me, I didn’t even realize how powerful personal belongings are. Every emotion you’ve ever felt, every thought, every gift you’ve placed in your personal space, every memory carries the energy of the person responsible for it. In life, a person needs to make radical changes, setting out toward new horizons without fear or anxiety about the unknown. A person must be brave enough to rid themselves of everything negative that suffocates them and holds them back from taking a new step and experiencing new and more beautiful emotions. Believe me, friends, even I never imagined how happy I’d feel at a moment like this, stuffing things into bags like a madwoman and throwing away the old belongings and clothes that had made me feel a certain way during a certain period of time.
And on that note, I wholeheartedly recommend a film by the creators of the so-called “minimalism” movement—Ryan Nicodemus and Joshua Fields—which will greatly inspire you to rethink many of your behavioral patterns and feel free within the matrix of life. However, if you’re not ready for a major change, you’d better not waste your time watching it.
