Sentiment Materialism
A sentiment materialistic person loves owning that broken watch his great grandfather left him, his very first football uniform and the torn cinema ticket he had from the first date he went on with his wife. These objects are, in function, worthless to him – in fact they’re pretty much worthless to everybody. He, of course, finds sentimental worth in them.
Sentiment Materials and Well-being
Sentimental materials can only bring happiness when they trigger bouts of nostalgia, all of which do so rarely, and some of them never do it at all. Most of the time these items are not sources of happiness for their owners.
For example, your first ever teddy bear is unlikely to make you happy: because you no longer play with it or use it as a comforter. Maybe it’s in the loft, maybe it sits at the end of your bed – but in either case it almost certainly doesn’t really make you happy. Sentiment materials are always, however, sources of anxiety and sadness should they go missing, get permanently lost or destroyed. So, that first ever teddy bear, while doing nothing but occupying space, will become important to your well-being if you lose it.
Reducing Sentiment Materialism
I have swimming certificates that were awarded to me from before I was eight and neither seeing them nor holding them takes me back in my mind to the pool in which I learned to swim. Only by making the conscious effort to remember those swimming lessons can I do so and the certificates aren’t any aid in this for me. My knowledge of this will prevent me from getting too cut up if I lose these certificates.
The first step in reducing sentiment materialism is to question which of your sentimental possessions actually makes you happy and, if one or two does, how often they do so. A part of this questioning process will lead you to realise (if you hadn’t already) that not one of these objects is linked in any real sense with your memories – and just that knowledge alone weakens your sentiment materialism permanently.
You’re likely to identify some objects as being pretty much worthless and some objects which actually do aid you in remembering the past.
The next step is to use those objects (look at them, smell them, feel them – whatever is relevant) and remember the times that you associate that item with. Then put the item away so it’s no longer in your field of perception and continue to see those memories you conjured with the aid of the sentimental object. Notice how the memory is no weaker without using that object. Now stop the nostalgia and go off and do something else for a while, maybe an hour or so, and then conjure up that memory again. You’ll see how easy it is to do so and better appreciate how unnecessary that sentimental object is. The final step is to imagine how you will live without that object. Imagine yourself remembering that memory in the future when that object has been lost or destroyed.
Do all of this and your well-being will be more secure, if not improved; because you’ll have weakened the negative emotional relationships you have with your sentimental items.
Check out the other articles in this series: Part 1, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6.
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