Sumber ilustrasi: Magnific
13 Mei 2026 10.13 WIB – Akar
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Desanomia [13.05.2026] Are you someone who enjoy saving money? This question has in fact received structural criticism. Why? Because it assumes that the person being asked is in a position and condition that make saving possible. In circumstances where the economy is far from stable, such a question may even be regarded as a form of mockery. Is that really the case?
We do not dismiss the possibility of such an interpretation. Yet that is not what we wish to discuss here. Why? Because the kind of saving under consideration is not understood in that sense, but rather as an action arising from the awareness that “saving is the consequence of recognising not to buy what is unnecessary”. In this understanding, saving is not the primary act. Saving is the result. What comes first is awareness itself.
In other words, the core issue is not primarily the ability to store money away, but the ability to distinguish between needs and wants. When a person genuinely understands the limits of necessity, whatever remains unspent naturally becomes savings. saving is not chiefly a financial practice, but the outcome of disciplined awareness.
Here an important shift takes place. Many people understand saving as the active act of setting money aside after consumption has already occurred. Yet from this perspective, saving actually begins before consumption takes place, namely at the moment when a person says: “I do not truly need this.” Savings emerge from the ability to restrain oneself from unnecessary purchases.
For that reason, saving is closely connected with the human capacity to confront desire. Human desire tends to move beyond necessity. Needs have limits. Wants are broader. But desire itself often knows no end. Once one desire is fulfilled, another soon appears. Under such conditions, people easily live within a perpetual illusion of insufficiency even when, objectively speaking, they already possess enough.
The awareness not to purchase what is unnecessary becomes crucial because the modern world structurally produces dissatisfaction. A consumerist economic system cannot sustain itself if people feel content. Consequently, the market continuously manufactures feelings of inadequacy: not modern enough, not successful enough, not attractive enough, not up to date enough. Consumption therefore no longer functions merely to fulfil needs, but to preserve social and psychological identity.
Within this context, the decision not to buy something unnecessary becomes both a philosophical and an ethical act. Such an act demonstrates that a person remains capable of taking distance from external pressures. One no longer automatically submits to market impulses, advertising, or social pressure. There emerges a reflective capacity to ask: “Do I truly need this, or am I simply being driven by the desire to possess?”
Saving is fundamentally not only accumulation of money. Saving is the concrete trace of the ability to say “enough”. And a sense of enoughness is among the most difficult forms of inner freedom to attain within a consumerist society. A person capable of feeling that enough is enough is not easily manipulated by image culture or the competition for status.
Yet the matter does not end there. The awareness not to buy what is unnecessary also transforms the human relationship with time. Impulsive consumption tends to centre life upon immediate gratification. Saving, by contrast, contains a long-term orientation. There is a willingness to sacrifice instant pleasure for the possibility of a more stable future. In this sense, saving becomes a form of responsibility towards one’s future self.
Interestingly, the act of “not buying” is often regarded as passive, whereas existentially it is profoundly active. Not buying means refusing a definition of self constructed through possession. Not buying means rejecting the notion that identity must constantly be renewed through objects. In a society that measures human worth through consumption, the ability not to buy can become a form of resistance against the reduction of the human being into a mere consumer.
Accordingly, saving is not the deepest essence of the matter. Savings themselves are only the visible material form. What is more fundamental is the formation of inner character: the ability to restrain impulses, the ability to distinguish between needs and desires, and the ability to live without continually seeking validation through possessions.
Yet caution is necessary at this point. The awareness not to buy should not become a total rejection of the pleasures of life. Human beings are not creatures who live solely for economic efficiency. Beauty, art, experience, gifts, and joy also belong to human life. The issue is not buying or not buying as such, but whether the action arises from conscious freedom or from psychological compulsion.
For that reason, the relationship between refraining from buying and saving should not be understood mechanically. Saving is not merely the result of reduced consumption, but the result of self-ordering. When human beings begin to recognise what is truly necessary and what merely satisfies ego or anxiety for a moment, life becomes lighter. From there, savings emerge not as a symbol of fear, but as the natural consequence of a more conscious way of living.
What do you think (njd)
Note: This article was made as part of a dedicated effort to bring everyday life around us to our minds.
