Curbing Consumerism

Did you know that industry created the consumer? A children's non-fiction book called Made You Look: How Advertising Works and Why You Should Know looks at just that. According to the author (Shari Graydon), businesses had to convince people that they were, in fact, consumers:

"You might think that families would have been happy to give up the time-consuming process of [making things]. But they weren't used to buying things. They had to be persuaded to stop being so self-sufficient. They had to be convinced to start spending their money on products that companies were making for them.
That's when advertising really jumped into high gear. It's job became not only to get people to buy, but to convince them to think of themselves differently-- as consumers."

Since we are not innately consumers, we don't need to constantly buy things the way we do. We can make our own stuff when we need it-- but this will no longer be considered "stuff", because it will hold much more personal importance, and because we'll have less of it.
When North Americans were given a questionairre on what decade they would prefer to live in, the majority answered "the 1960's". The 1960s is the decade when it is estimated that happiness stopped growing with affluence. Nowadays, our buying habits and our "stuff" weighs us down more than it could possibly help us. I heard about a survey somewhere where people said that their lives had changed the most at the turn of the millenium by simply becoming more complicated and stressful. It's true.
Here are ways to curb consumerism in your lifestyle:

• As David Helvarg, the author of 50 Ways to Save the Ocean, says, "focus on 'having more fun' as an alternative to 'buying more stuff.'" Go out with your family and friends and play board games-- it will be much more memorable than some new gadget, anyway. Remember that when you have to take a habit out from your lifestyle, you'll need to replace it with something else.
• Reduce, reuse, recycle! I'll be talking about this more in the next few weeks.
• If you need something, make it yourself. Try to make it as much "from scratch" as possible. Examples of things that you can make/grow by yourself are candles, meals, fruits, vegetables, beans, clothing, houses, kitchenware, gifts, and paintings.
• For things that you can't make yourself but you still do need, buy it secondhand, from a thrift or consignment store. You can also ask to borrow someone else's, if you only want to use it once.
• Give the gift of time together during the holidays! How many materialistic gifts have you recieved over the holidays that you don't even need or want?
• Pass on the message and watch "The Story of Stuff" with Annie Leonard at http://www.storyofstuff.com/.

For more useful information, please another of my blog posts, "Simplify Your Life", at http://hugatreetodayseriously.blogspot.com/2011/11/simplify-your-life.html. It gives many supplementary ideas!