Photo by ShawnCampbell

The most successful ideology to spread across the world in the past century is consumerism.  While so many people argue about political ideologies and which ones are more successful, consumerism seems to have slipped by unnoticed since it can thrive in almost any political system.  Basically, it is the idea that a person’s happiness is directly connected to the amount of material possessions they amass.

To think that buying things is what will make us happy seems downright silly.  Sure materials can give you temporary pleasure or even long-lasting pleasure, but to equate this pleasure with happiness is wrong.  Most of the time, the pleasure gotten from buying things is not even a result of the intrinsic value of the object, it is a result of how it satisfies our egos.  The demand for luxury products is in large part driven by the need for people to feel superior to others.  The Lexus is better than the Toyota, the $2 million house vs. the $1 million house.  What do extra bedrooms have to do with our happiness?  Will I not be able to achieve contentment in my life if I don’t have leather seats in my car?

This idea can cause us to run blindly toward the objects we desire without paying attention to what we are doing to get them.  People end up working jobs that they don’t like so that they can pay for things they don’t need.  College students are studying subjects that will make them the most money so that they can get the best house and car.  If a person’s life is spent doing things without passion just to obtain these goods, in the end, life will have been a complete waste.  The happiness comes in the way we live every second of it, not just in the moments where we finally are able to buy that new flat screen.  We end up suffering to achieve these ends.

Every time a goal is met and a purchase is made, the pleasure dissipates quickly.  The new suit will not bring the same excitement everyday.  So then you have to find something else to desire, to work toward, to get the next high from.  With this ideology, we end up living from object to object, never realizing why it never lasts each time.  The idea of a life lived in a futile pursuit is horrifying, yet people are not horrified at themselves.  Desire and pleasure should not be confused with happiness, that is the first mistake.  Now, even the younger generations are being programmed to operate this way, along with other cultures who had escaped this thinking before.  There’s a reason why there is starting to be a shift in thinking toward Eastern philosophy in the United States.  Some are realizing that materials are not the source of happiness.  But all of this starts with questioning.  We must constantly question our motives and examine our definitions.  It is only with constant oversight that we start to shift our own minds.