Thoughts from Nathan on Consumerism: Part 1 of 3

Every year, as we approach Christmas, the consumerism that drives our culture loses all subtlety. Companies approach the end of the calendar year desperate to meet revenue expectations and they create marketing campaigns that play on our fears and insecurities, with the simple objective of driving more purchasing.

In this post, I’ll focus on a few of the effects that this consumption fest has on us. In a couple of days, I’ll suggest something of an antidote, and then late this week (or maybe early next week), I’ll write on some practical suggestions that follow as a result of that thinking. 

So what does consumerism do to us?

•      We become fearful – fearful of losing, of falling behind, of failing compared to others, of not being as successful as we should be, of missing out on experiences and privileges that we think we deserve. We live with an unnamed anxiety that gnaws at us, that makes us restless, dissatisfied, fearful people. That guy drives a better car – he must be better than me in meetings. He probably went to a better school. She always knows what to wear. I bet she is liked by more people than I am. Her children are going to be more successful than mine. They never seem overwhelmed - my life is not as together as theirs is.

•      It reduces me to being nothing more than a collection of impulses –  the satisfaction of acquisition, the thrill of winning, the temporal and sensual satiation of cravings. After a lifetime chasing these things, you will hear people say in a moment of weakness - Is this really all there is? We were not created to be simply a complex collection of temporal impulses. There is violence done to the human soul when it is reduced to that.

•      The third side-effect of the consumerist culture is that it enslaves me to devote more of my energies to buying things and less on what is important, but it makes it feel like I have no choice. We gear our finances up and defer the payments to the future. This mountain of debt enslaves us to a degree of busy-ness and frantic activity that robs us of rest, of joy, of peace and wonder, and I feel powerless to do anything about it.

•      And finally, by taking more than I should from the world, I become an instrument of its abuse. Piles of acquired nonsense get purchased, used a couple of times and then discarded. We even pay to store all this stuff somewhere other than our homes. Guess how much stuff bought in America is still in use six months later? 1%. ONE PERCENT*. Our participation in this system can cause us a deep sense of grief. I have left enormous shopping malls with a grief that almost causes me to weep at how wrong we have got it.
Check back in later this week for a more hopeful post. Although consumerism is all-pervasive, it’s antidote lies in the quiet power of gratitude and generosity.

http://tradeasone.com/blog/thoughts_from_nathan_on_consumerism_part_1_of_3/

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