Reflections on over-consumption

This morning I was walking to my coffee shop on King St here in Hamilton (Cafe Oranje...awesome) and I  saw one of the most typical sites one sees in  large shopping districts - a young mother with a child chasing after her, begging for a toy. It reminds me of the Berenstein Bears book about "The Gimmies"! (Admittedly the overzealous Christian values  portrayed in a number of these books totally turned me off them as I got older, but this one in particular is a freaking gem and I will definitely read it to my kids!). The mother was trying not to pay attention to her child, just held her hand tightly and dragged her along while scrolling through something on her phone.

I am not judging this young mother. I do not know her and I cannot begin to know what was going on in her life that caused her to act this way. The problem is  much larger than this one woman alone. The problem is with our  consumer society.  VOMD  and I were at the mall in Barrie a couple weeks ago when we went to visit my childhood best friend (who is getting married very soon!) and I remarked to him that I was surprised by how many people bring their children to a shopping mall, knowing that they will probably regret it. There were families everywhere, and people pushing shopping carts full of toys and snack foods and soda and clothing. Almost every person we saw in the  mall was miserable. They were in a hurry. They  were weighed down by  parcels and bags. They  hate being there. And I hate being there too. But we feel like we need to be  there. We need to shop. We need new clothes and new electronics, and new body care products. We need so much stuff. But this stuff  never makes us feel better. And what's worse is that it  is destroying the planet (I mean, to a lesser extent than animal product consumption does). 

When I got home from my coffee  walk I went on the internet and starting reading up on consumption. To live is to consume, so it is not surprising that the majority of new jobs in North America are sales and marketing related. North Americans have more consumer debt than ever before in history, and so much of this money is spent on things that are non-essential. Apparently in the US people spend more than 25 billion dollars on video games every year! If you think that is bad, Americans spend around 65 billion dollars on soft drinks! BILLIONS OF DOLLARS on soft drinks when  tap water is essentially free.  Doesn't  that just totally freak you out? Think about all the un-recycled soft drink bottles.

After learning about this I started looking around my house at all the stuff. Some stuff is sentimental and means so much to me that I would never consider donating or re-purposing it. I have no regrets about the little knick knacks here and there that remind me of happy memories, or my loved ones. But on the other hand, there is so much stuff that I don't need, barely like, and just sits around collecting dust. And then there is my dresser, which is filled to the brim with  t-shirts I never wear, and pants that I bought for a job interview that I never went to. Why do we do this to ourselves? 

So, here is my new  goal: I am going to try to be less of a consumer. I am going to make my own laundry soap, I am going to re-purpose old clothes instead of tossing them or buying new ones. I am going to stop buying so many single use plastic items and buy groceries and pantry staples without plastic as much as possible to avoid creating more waste and I am going to do my very best to stop buying so many lattes (but this one is going to be difficult...maybe I should just commit to never forgetting my reusable coffee cup). VOMD and I already don't consume any soft drinks, and though we do drink our fair share of beer, we always return our bottles. But there are certain things we could do without - like vegan cheeses wrapped in single use plastic packaging and new socks (whatever happened to the ancient art of darning anyway?)

I also found this really cool website called Becoming Minimalist which is just full of awesome ways to live a simple life with less stuff.

I would love to hear how you limit your consumption! 

Happy Tuesday! 

-J

All Lego consumes is soft food, sun rays and snuggles.