Last week I gave into temptation and splurged on myself. In one of the nerdiest splurges imaginable, I bought an expensive board game (Terraforming Mars), and I bought three expansions for it, and I bought a custom organizer for all the game pieces. Total cost: $169.
I spent the next hour looking forward to it with great excitement, but I hardly ever spend that kind of money on myself, so, not surprisingly, I soon started feeling a little guilty. How can I justify this sort of spending when so many people have so little? I know that spending resources on self-improvement isn’t selfish, but buying this game had nothing to do with self-improvement, despite all the benefits of games. This was clearly a selfish indulgence.
Then I had a realization: If I can afford to spend that much money on myself, I can also afford to give that much money to charity. So I hopped on my computer and gave $200 to Partners In Health. Immediately, I felt better about the purchase I’d made, and I resumed eagerly looking forward to its arrival. Plus, I had done something to help the world’s poorest people get access to quality healthcare.
I decided this would be a new personal rule: If I want to spend money on myself, fine, but I also have to make a matching donation to charity. If I can’t afford to do both, I have to wait until I can. From now on, whenever I feel like I have enough abundance in my life to buy something nice for myself, I’ll need to share that abundance with others.
I encourage you to consider adopting this rule yourself, not only because it’s a good thing to do, but also because being generous will do more to increase your happiness than buying things for yourself will.1 That finding from positive psychology, combined with a timely reminder from John Green about the good work done by Partners in Health, is what inspired this new rule.
I wish you great abundance, both personally enjoyed and widely shared.
1 Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment. McGraw-Hill Education, 2007.