Ultimate Self (realizing personal potential)

The costs of overconsumption

The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win you’re still a rat. Lily Tomlin.

Most of us have more than we need and yet are still not content. Most of us want more, of everything, but the price we pay for our love affair with hyper consumerism can be high.

Overwork. Australians work longer hours than ever before and longer hours than in any other Western country. Overwork (to pay for more and more things) limits our freedom and choices and can have an adverse impact on our health.

Long working weeks put intolerable stress on family and other relationships.

Unrealistic expectations (followed by inevitable disappointment). From childhood, advertisers and marketers train us so well to be consumers that it is easy to assume we are entitled to all the things they induce us to want. The message they send is that we don’t need to deny ourselves anything or postpone any pleasure. Advertising distorts our judgement of what is realistically attainable and what is not. It feeds narcissistic dreams of wealth, fame, and glory as though they are the norm, easily achievable, and everyone is entitled to, and should expect them.

But obscurity and disappointment are more common than ’success’ and it is easy to feel inadequate and dissatisfied when our dreams come to nothing or we measure ourselves against the images of wealth, beauty, and success that bombard us.

Damaged self-esteem. Advertisers and marketers constantly attack our self-images in order to encourage us to buy things that promise to make us ‘better’, younger, healthier, happier. Many people buy into the advertisers’ myth of perfection and feel impelled to chase a faultless but unattainable super-self or the ‘best of everything’ to compensate for the inevitable failure.

When life is dominated by commercialism we can come to see people as commodities and relationships as commercial transactions. So we want the best ‘product’, the best ‘deal’ for ourselves by getting the most from others while giving the least. We can come to see commitment to others, caring for, and about them, and changing our behaviour for their sakes, as naive or even irrational, because it interferes with our own self-fulfillment. And in a throw-away world people and relationships too can become disposable.

Distorted self-images. Our unique identity, our ’self’ is hugely influenced by our ideal self–the person we would like to be, or think we should be, and by our reflected self–the person others see and reflect back to us, which usually carries some measure of assessment. The messages other people give us about ourselves are hugely important in shaping our self-image. Both these elements of self are strongly influenced by peer pressure and social expectations (especially for young people). When commercialism rules, the self we and others expect us to be is often shallow, materialistic, selfish, greedy, and narrow.

Debt. Personal debt has never been so high. We no longer have to save for what we want but instant gratification comes at a price. Interest rates make anything we buy on credit far more expensive than its nominal price. Carrying a burden of debt is highly stressful, and some people who get out of their depth end up losing everything.

Inequality. Our competitive, commercial society creates winners and losers. Those who, for whatever reason, are not economic successes are denied ‘the good life’. The unemployed and disadvantaged often slide into addictions and/or crime. But when any member of society becomes marginalized we all pay the price. You might well be a ‘winner’ but a ‘loser’ may feel entitled to burgle your house, mug you in the street, or steal your car.

When high population density, competition, and consumerism combine with a breakdown in interdependence and community feeling, selfishness is inevitable. The bigger the population the less important each individual is. When competition is more important than co-operation, we become a collection of disconnected individuals. Our capacity for empathy is diminished and those who are of no direct use to us or interest to us become nuisances, irrelevant, or adversaries and obstacles to our own interests. The good of the individual becomes more important than the common good.

Possession overload. Owning things brings obligations. We have to pay for them, learn how to operate them, insure, maintain, clean, repair, and store them. The more things we own the more time we must devote to them. There comes a point where we can feel oppressed by our possessions.

Children’s problems. In a highly materialist society it is harder to instill healthy values in children, which makes parenting more difficult. Vandalism, graffiti, gangs, underage drinking, violence, and bullying often have a basis in lack of parental presence and influence, lack of supervision and discipline. When healthy parental influence is limited, peer groups and media and advertising messages have far more impact. And working parents often don’t have time to prepare nutritious meals or even know what their children are eating, which increases the likelihood of childhood obesity.

Harassment. Everyone is trying to sell you something. Everyone wants your money. Or so it seems. The pressure to spend and to buy is relentless. Telemarketers, junk mail, and even charities constantly assail us. Advertising is everywhere and more intrusive and attention-demanding than ever (yes, even on blogs). It’s easy to feel hunted and harassed.

Envy. People often confuse envy and jealousy. Jealousy is about fear of losing something. Envy is resentment of someone else being something we aren’t, or having something we want and don’t have. Envy is a bitter, consuming, disturbing feeling which corrodes peace of mind. It’s not unique to modern, affluent societies. For centuries it has been known as ‘The Evil Eye’ and feared for its destructive and vindictive power. But in a world where we are supposed to have whatever we want and be whatever we want (and where there is no end to our wants) there is a limitless supply of people to envy.

Time poverty. With so much time spent working, commuting, consuming, or thinking about and looking for what to consume next, there is little time for anything else. Which leads to:

A life out of balance. With such intense focus on materialism we disconnect from each other and the wider world and leave much of ourselves undeveloped.

When all we do is earn and consume our lives can become meaningless.

Constant competition and comparisons (with the likes of the rich and famous) creates discontent. We never feel that we are good enough or have enough. This feeling of self-dissatisfaction, especially when combined with envy, alienates us from others and ourselves so that we feel a constant sense of disconnection and isolation.

The emphasis on consuming can plunge us into a full-blown obsessive-compulsive disorder, an addiction to spending.

Our expectations are constantly being fueled and constantly rising so that they can never be satisfied and we feel deprived while in the midst of abundance.

Our identities come to depend on outside arbiters (following the latest fads, fashions and having the newest version of everything, becomes an indication of ‘coolness’ and social acceptance). We lose touch with who we really are when our identity depends on having the ‘right’ things and looking the ‘right’ way.

It is hard to be, and to freely express our true self if that self differs from the acquisitive materialist that our society expects and demands.

For those who fail to live up to their own and society’s ‘great expectations’ of them, bitterness, self-loathing, and humiliation can follow (because little besides material success is valued).

When we do everything that is expected of us and ’succeed’ in getting the right education, career, spouse, possessions, property, and investments, we expect to feel secure and happy because that is what we are led to believe will happen. And if we don’t feel happy or fulfilled (because our true selves have been lost in chasing after other people’s goals for us) we can be thrown into confusion and depression.

And when we see how those who don’t measure up in the affluence stakes are labeled ‘losers’, how they are dismissed, ignored, and denigrated, how they lose respect, status, and social standing, our fear of becoming one of them, our fear of ‘failure’, can become pathological. No wonder having more doesn’t necessarily make us happier.