There is a war going here, folks. Millions of dollars are being spent to get you to spend your money. The choice is yours.
We are drowning in a sea of manipulation. Advertising makes us want and makes us do. Advertising sells us food, cars, wars, people and political parties, ideas, policies, religion. Everything in our modern world is focused on trying to motivate us in one way or another.
It Takes Money to Make Money
It takes money to do all this advertising, all this manipulation, all this motivating. And you and I are the recipients at business end of this fire hose of screaming and yelling. You are I are the intended recipients of all this avalanche of noise.
Money, Money
In the U.S., about $206 Billion is spent annually on advertising. That’s about $635 per person per year. They are spending $635 to influence you to do things they want you to do. But what do you want?
And why?
Why do they spend this money? Because we are needed. We are needed to keep the economic and political trains running. We are needed so those with the power to manipulate us continue to get more money, more power, more acceptance of whatever is being sold. The primary part of the purpose of all the advertising is to keep us spending, keep us consuming.
A secondary reason is to keep us from questioning it. When we are fully subsumed into it, when we are totally paying attention to the messages, we do not have the time or the peace of mind to step back and say “No!” Nor do we have the time or peace of mind to step back and say, “What the hell is going on here? I don’t like, I don’t want it!” When we are in the throes and clutches of the advertising energy, we are constantly being bombarded with messages about the Next Great Thing.
Consumer acceptance is the key to corporate success, so enormous efforts are made to buy and own that acceptance. Corporate survival depends on consumer acceptance. As a result, the goal of all advertising is to motivate you and I to accept what is being offered. Our acceptance is paid for by our buying the product being offered.
The Next Great Thing is what we are taught to pine after, to want, to lust after. To make you wish “If Only I Had The Next Great Thing, Then I Will Be OK!”
And the choices we are presented with. It’s always: do you want The Extra Large size or The Super Large size? Never do you see the choice of “No thanks.”
Much advertising is geared to make you feel you are missing out unless you emotionally join others in whatever is being sold.
But there is a way to break free and take back ownership of one’s life. It is:
Get Off The Consumption Train!
That is so simple an idea, Get Off The Consumption Train, but it is supremely effective. When drowning in our poor choices of money spending, we need a plan, an idea to follow, a way to see a clear path through the thicket of advertising yelling at us every moment.
How To Help Oneself: Reduce Exposure To Advertising.
Why?
Because by our own human nature, we are susceptible to the influences of advertising. Less exposure means we have the space to think for ourselves.
How to do this?
Spend less time in front of the television. Less time on Social Media.
Q. So, you may ask, where should I spend my time if you are telling me to cut back on the things I spend most of my time now?
A. Who Are You? What Are You? When will you be ready to answer these questions? When will you be ready to even think about these questions?
Are you a consumer, in the sense of your position in life is to consume? What are you interested in, what will be fulfilling for you? Do you secretly wish to play music, write a book, grow a garden, paint a picture, run a marathon… what else?
Think back to you high school years, and remember what you thought about doing “when you grow up”. You had dreams, you had interests, you had plans, you had goals. What are they? Where are they?
Are you waiting for “someday“? I will let you in on a secret: Someday is Now. Put down that cell phone, turn off the TV, skip the bar tonight, and get out a notebook. Write down your goals. Write down at least one goal. Take the first step to being the person who you really are.
In the frame of who we are, we will find that we get more fulfillment from being who we are, by working towards our plans and goals, than we ever did spending money.
Then we will realize that the common mindless spending of money is done for the purpose of distracting us from doing what we really want to do, to distract us from our true life goals. That spending money blocks us from being who we really are.
Of course, spending some money is necessary. We do need food and shelter and other normal necessities. And also much of what we spend money on is unnecessary and drains us of our life.
Not everyone is ready to put their foot down and completely transform their life overnight. That method may not be easy. But we can draw inspiration from it.
One woman did a shopping ban for a year. And wrote a book about it. She wrote: “At every stage, I learned that the less I consumed, the more fulfilled I felt.”
I like this quote: “Be your own person. Focus on things that you want, that truly matter to you. Think about why you’re buying things, and start severely cutting the value you give to what other people might think. You’ll always be happier in the long run.” from The Simple Dollar. (Source has taken this page offline.)
What do you think? Can you simplify your life and spend less? You can send a comment to the address on the Contact page.
The 1858 map of North America is from “Mitchell’s School and Family Geography” (1858).
The post Get Off The Consumption Train was first published on Smile If You Dare.