I’m still trying to consume less. Which sounds like the beginning of a very boring sentence but stick with me. It’s not really about the buying. It’s about what I do instead of buying, and lately that’s meant a lot more time outside, en plein air, sweating with friends over something as unserious as a plastic ball and a net.

For a long time, my dopamine came from the usual place, scrolling, watching other people’s beautifully curated feeds, wanting things I didn’t need because wanting them felt like a small hit of joy. But a hit of something isn’t the same as an experience, and I think I’d forgotten the difference. An experience lingers. A new throw pillow does not.

So I started asking myself what actually gave me that good, buzzy, endorphin feeling without requiring a delivery truck. Turns out the answer was embarrassingly simple: my friends, moving my body, and being bad at something on purpose. Enter pickleball. I did not expect a sport played mostly by retirees and my extremely competitive group chat to become the centerpiece of my de-consumption era, but here we are.

There’s something almost communal about it, presque une petite fête every time four of us show up to a court. Nobody’s dressed particularly well. Somebody always forgets water. But for an hour we’re just there, together,  laughing at our own terrible serves, and I leave feeling more full than I ever did after a scroll session that promised me a better kitchen backsplash with this one simple trick!

The unglamorous part, the part nobody puts on a moodboard, is the logistics. Courts fill up fast once more people catch on, and I learned quickly that showing up and hoping for the best is not a plan, c’est du pur hasard. Now our little group runs everything through pickleball booking software, which sounds almost comically unromantic next to all this talk of endorphins and joie de vivre, but it’s the reason we actually get on a court instead of standing around a fence arguing about whose turn it is. Reserve the slot, show up, play. No drama, no wasted afternoon.

What I keep noticing is that none of this costs very much, certainly less than the version of me that was one algorithm away from redoing my whole wardrobe. A paddle, a court fee, a bit of planning. That’s it. And yet I come home with something that actually sticks, sore forearms, an inside joke from a rally that went on way too long, a small savoir-faire I didn’t have a month ago.

I don’t think the answer to over-consumption is some grand renunciation, no minimalist white room, no vow of austerity. I think it’s smaller than that. It’s noticing which things actually refill you and which things just distract you until the next thing. For me right now, it’s showing up on a court with people I like, en pleine forme or not, and letting that be enough for the afternoon.