One comment to my last article led me on this mental tangent: the advertising industry's power over consumers....and buying ridiculous things in general.
For example, Chocolate Pushers make their products look so desirable with their frilly pink displays...So for the impressionable consumer with a couple of extra bucks in their pocket, it's almost nothing to buy a small thing like chocolate, but for every person who forks out a couple of bucks, to the chocolate industries that adds up to TRILLIONS of dollars. Sheesh. What a waste of money. Although the families of people who own, operate, and work for chocolate companies have pretty good job security...Hmmm...
Still, Sometimes I look forward to some globally huge calamity that will jar people back into their right minds. Huge calamities make us stop and think about how we've been living, and what we ought to change about it...for example...the kind of junk we spend our money on could instead be set aside for better causes.
Another example of wasting money, and the lifestyle changes it begets: materialism, coveting, and keeping up with the Joneses. I thought those were types of things I was above, until fairly recently. I've always believed that I don't need any material possessions outside of some fairly basic things. You know, a roof over my head, food in the fridge, hygeine items, a clean wardrobe, a dependable car...that kind of stuff.
Oh, but then we "need" furniture to sit on, sleep on, eat on... (Defining "need" is risky, because we really have it so well as people used to living in First-World Conditions). For furniture we've been satisfied so far with hand-me-downs and PCS giveaways. None of our furniture matches, we don't even have a bed to sleep on, but we're happy. Furniture does not equal happiness. Granted, I'm not the perfect hostess with matching china and Mobel Martin sofas when guests come over...but guests come to visit us, not our furniture. We're real people, with real friendships.
*Sigh* What gets me on this topic is a friend of mine. She & her husband have three children under the age of five...and they make less money than we do. They've foreclosed on two homes, had cars repossessed...have no savings account or 401K or anything like that. With their tax return they just received, they completely refurnished their entire small, modest apartment with furniture that is quite extravagant. The furniture they had before was perfectly fine. It just "didn't match," she said. I looked at her and said, "I'm happy for you." In a way, I AM happy for her. She loves aesthetics, and these new acquisitions mean a lot to her.
Somehow their furniture expenditure upset me though. I want to say that I don't know why it bothered me, but I'm afraid I do know. 1) I'm jealous; 2) I think they mis-spent their much-needed money; and 3) They didn't give me any of their old furniture.
*Sigh* So I'm just as wretched of a person as I'm trying so hard not to be.
