Consumption is fading our souls

Imagine if for just one day, an alien visited America to see how humans lived. I bet the creature would return to its home planet saying “Dude, those guys are killing themselves in a weirdly comfortable way”.

The extraterrestrial creature would go through one day, experiencing all the consumption it could handle before feeling itself deteriorating. As the day comes to an end, the creature says, “You can’t consume your way to peace and happiness” and once it disappears, we’d say “Well I sure am not taking advice from a hippie”.

We consume too much nowadays, and we are too addicted to overcome it. Corporations have us figured out, hence why we see many items marketed towards emotions and feelings. When tragedy strikes, businesses are the first on the scene to sell their product with a hash tag, collecting most of the profits. Unfortunately, Cause Marketing convinces the consumer they are doing the right thing by buying a product. Instead, people could donate their money straight to the victim or a research center rather than making the rich richer and the sick sicker.

I see the corny joke on social media that says, “Purpose, I thought you said purchase” and while it generally gets many engagements, so do the wallets of corporations. Every time I see that joke, I can hear businessmen cheering for the fact they’ve infiltrated our sense of humor with consumption. We’ve overcome too much adversity in history to allow our lives to be succumbed to making useless purchases every day.

High schoolers face the social pressure of who has the coolest shoes and college students are now representing their sticker-loaded Hydro Flask bottles. Consumption now dictates the identity of how we hydrate ourselves. I can’t help but think of President Jimmy Carter’s famous “Crisis in Confidence” speech in 1979 as he states, “Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns”.

It is no surprise that business is the most popular major. In 2015, 19 percent of bachelor’s degrees were in business. This is not to take away from those pursuing the major, but in a world where most of our survival needs are abundantly met, we still choose money over passion, quantity over quality. We would rather have more materials than memories. Your soul hides behind each item you treasure, but your character shines through with actions.

A compliment to one’s smile always holds more value than a compliment to their shoes or jacket because we only bought the item, but the smile is who we are. 

History is just a big story of humanity, making us all storytellers and characters in our own stories. If someone were to view your story, how many advertisements would they see placed in it?

Unfortunately, anyone who argues against consumption is denounced as some hippie. This is what society does when their comfort feels threatened, they make the truth sound outrageous. 

We feel so compelled to listen to people with lots of money that we elected a businessman/celebrity as our president. We listen to celebrities speak about climate preservation as they fly back to their oversized mansion in a private jet. Sadly, we don’t listen to the person who sees consumption as a way of manipulating our emotions and passions.

We are slowly losing ourselves with each possession, which is why it’s no coincidence depression is quickly rising in our society. 

At one point, we were kids with big aspirations to do great things. Now, we are scared adults who rely on the dopamine we get with each purchase. 

There is good news though, people hate living this way, but are afraid to go against the flow. This means you will immediately stick out as a beacon of light by being yourself and pursuing your passion. 

Create more and consume less, I promise you, not only does the world need this, but so do you.