We cannot escape it. It flashes all over our computer screen. It inundates us with text messages. It fills our email inboxes. It monopolizes our television screens. It fills the pages of magazines and newspapers; and it gets delivered with our snail mail. The pressure to buy, buy, buy – and to apply for credit and sign up for email and text notifications. We are urged to join “exclusive” clubs that tether you to a specific store or brand – all with the message that you will be “saving” money. The blaring advertisements between the songs played on the radio, and the fund drives and pleas from the non-profits are all clamoring for our attention.
Somewhere, buried deep within our psyche, we know that spending money does not equal saving money; but we buy into the falsehood anyway. Our inner guidance is drowned out by the noise of consumerism. We are collectively being deceived and our ability to think rationally is squeezed out by constant temptation. We are literally being crushed by our own insatiable desires – desires that we may not have had before they were waved in front of our nose.
We are targeted at every turn. We cannot check out at a store without passing by numerous items that the merchant is hoping we will add to our purchase. And even when we think we are strong enough to resist, we are offered recurring shipments that promise to “save” us money.
Our own government has a 36 trillion dollar debt. Consumer debt is at an all time high. Here we are at the holidays again and how many of us will pile up still more debt and astronomical interest, ensuring us days of anxiety, sleepless nights, and poor health, even while we struggle to put food on the table. Our country cannot continue on this trajectory. Neither can we. We have lost our values. We have lost our way. Come January, our government will be making a fresh start. We will as well. It is up to each of us individually, to release the pressure and to learn to find contentment, not in things, but in life itself.
