Like everyone else, I've been trying to put the events of the economic crisis in context to help me understand it. I was especially astounded by the death of the WalMart employee on "Black Friday." The bottomline is that we've become obese as a culture. For a while now, we've become so focused on our appetite to consume. We have all seen how such an appetite for food has caused our health system to come close to collapsing. Now, our whole culture is teetering from the same kind of appetite for stuff.
How do we, as a culture, break this cycle. It's a lot like working out or eating right. We've got to become disciplined in what we consume, always asking, will what I'm contemplating consuming really help me get to my goal or make me happy? It's about focusing on the moment. It's a victory every time we don't bow to our appetite.
To get out of this thing it's gonna mean putting one step in front of the other and focusing on becoming healthy. There's no doubt that, when this is over, we'll all be better off for going through it.
This idea of gluttonous consumption is soo relevant today. From consuming beyond our means and the resulting credit card debt to the feelings of guilt experienced by the rich who can afford to spend copious amounts of money on goods.
Perhaps we could get a better picture of our over-consumption by seeing what happens on the back-end of consumption - how much we discard. A friend of mine believes that we could greatly reduce waste if everyone were charged for each pound of trash we throw away. If you've never been to a trash dump that charges you in that manner, it really gives you a strange sense of guilt. I wonder how consumption patterns would change if we gave people the chance to see the amount of what they throw away?
Posted by: Katie Fitzgerald | February 07, 2009 at 03:42 PM