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.
Chris Loper has been writing about self-improvement and helping busy adults with habit formation since 2017.
He also writes an education blog for parents and students for Northwest Educational Services.
Along with Greg Smith, Chris is the cocreator of Parenting for Academic Success, a series of transformative classes that create empowered parents, confident students, and harmonious families.
His most recent endeavor combines his academic and habit-formation expertise to help students thrive in college. Visit SmartCollegeHabits.com to learn more.
In 2021, Chris published a humorous memoir titled Wood Floats and Other Brilliant Observations, a book that blends crazy stories with practical life lessons.
He lives in Issaquah, WA where he is the owner of South Cove Tutoring.