Beetitudes

If you follow me on YouTube, you probably saw my recent video where I talked about re-reading the Little House series and how much it has made me think about modern day life. One of my major goals for this year was to stop spending on unnecessary things – no buying extra clothes, and no buying home decor or unneeded gadgets for the house.

As much as I was already feeling that modern-day capitalism, marketing, and the huge drive for consumption and convenience that keeps capitalism afloat is ruining us, reading these books drove me even farther in that direction. It reminded me just how much self-sufficiency, and freedom, we are giving up for a world of convenience.

I read about how Charles went to the woods, cut down trees with an axe, and built a whole cabin that way. I read about how Almanzo’s mother spun thread from wool, then wove that thread into fabric, and then made clothes for the family from it. Can you imagine? Nowadays we don’t even know how to make a dress from fabric you can buy at the store, let alone make our own fabric!

The trade off means we are dependent on commerce and big business to keep us alive and well. And that isn’t sitting well with me anymore.

We live lives of convenience, driven by our capitalistic economy. We work 40+ hours per week, not including commute time and lunch breaks. Then we come home and have just a few hours each evening to cook, clean, and complete home tasks, followed by a weekend in which we must run errands and do any home maintenance that needs done.

We are forced into a world where we must contribute to society and the economy, where we must pay taxes to uphold it, and we can’t survive if we do not. The unintended consequence is to say “yes, YES, anything!!” to any convenience that makes life easier for us because we simply do not have time to work for the economy, and also live our lives at home.

So, in comes fast food and convenience food. In comes store-bought clothes and home decor items, because who has time to make them? And perhaps more importantly – who makes enough money in all this life we’re giving up for a capitalist economy to afford anything of quality, which is always significantly more expensive?

Meanwhile, those convenience foods are making us sick and killing us so quickly that our life expectancy is starting to slip backwards again – they may as well bring back the diseases that were eradicated by vaccines. At least those would kill us quickly instead of dragging it out and running up a massive hospital bill that will be left to burden our families! Joking…but only sort of?

On top of that, the need for convenience is also killing our planet. Agriculture is the single largest contributor to global warming, and fast fashion is no slouch either. All to make food that destroys our health and clothes we’ll wear a couple of months and throw in the land fill.

We’re so far into this mess now, that it will be a tough turn around. But we can turn it around, starting with examining our habits and deciding that we simply are no longer going to fall victim to consumerism. If we stop buying and stop consuming unnecessarily, corporations will lose their power over us. Maybe we can regain a foothold. Maybe we can get our elected officials to work for us instead of big business. I know, I know…it’s a long stretch and probably a pipe dream. But it is doable – only if all of us collectively come together and do it.

I challenge you to think about what you’ve purchased over the last few months. Did you need it? Did you gain any great value from it? Was it a temporary dopamine hit, and is now uninteresting? What about food – how much fast food do you buy? How many boxes of processed food do you purchase and consume? By contrast, how much fresh produce are you consuming?

Simply by refusing to buy anything processed from those center aisles of the grocery store, we can make a big impact. Then from there, maybe look at clothing, home goods, personal care products. Maybe switch from shopping stores, to looking to Etsy and the like for handmade items from individuals and small businesses. Just for a start!

We can make a difference. We vote with our dollars every single day as to what life we want to live. Are you willing to jump in and do this with me? Let’s send them a message and change this country!

Love,
Loren