Consumerism is suffocating a generation. We are bombarded daily by adverts enticing us to buy, buy, buy more. We work and we spend. Lots. Often. Endlessly. Our spaces become the collection zones for all of this stuff we were convinced in a moment that we needed. Advertisers play on our insecurities and our want to fit in, to have the thing "everyone has" to look just like the rest, so we don't stand out too much. So we can be comfortable. We think this will make us happy, so we dig into our pockets. We buy.



But the happiness remains elusive. It is just beyond the next purchase. Always the next purchase. Happiness never arrives with the last purchase you made, it someone manages to slip through our hands and wait for us, calling us from beyond the purchase next in line. The next thing we so badly must have. Now. To make us happy.

The truth is, things can never fill internal voids or emotional pain. Buying is a way of numbing existential crises, it makes us into these passive robots. Our happiness, we have been conditioned to believe, is waiting for us in a new shiny thing we do not yet own. In a better fitting pair of jeans. In the next update, or a bigger screen. These things only dumb us down. We start to believe that our happiness is out of our control.


But of course they want you to believe that. They need you unhappy. They need you to believe that your emoitonal void can and will be filled with buying things, that we must buy and buy and one day, someday far in the future, when we have made enough money to purchase the one thing that holds our ultimate happiness and contentment that all this searching will cease.



But it course it won't. Because your happiness is in your own hands. It's up to you. You and only you are capable of attaining happiness for yourself (not your wallet). Happiness stems from contentment which steams from gratitude. And gratitude is the being thankful for what you do have, not being bitter about what you do not. When you learn that your amount of material and possessions does not directionally correlate to your level of happiness, then you understand that you can be happy with nothing and you can be happy with everything. The amount of stuff, the stuff itself makes no difference. You make the difference. Your attitude makes the difference. You are in control. Don't let our consumerist society brainwash you into believing that happiness lies outside of you. That has never been true.

 The corporations need to drive that false message into the minds of the majority because the few individuals who benefit hugely from having a huge need and demand are the people furthurest from happy. They have put their worth, purpose and happiness into the hands of material possessions and let their amount of wealth dictate their levels of happiness. And that is never a good idea because money and numbers can go on forever. Their search will be endless. Unattainable.


We can decide to attain happiness by not searching for it in external possessions. We can learn that internal beliefs and ideas will give us freedom and happiness; a reason for being, a sense of purpose and direction, nurturing our need for belonging and finding people we relate to on levels far beyond anything materialistic, forming bonds with people who inspire and uplift us because they are inspired and uplifted. This type of person does not tie their happiness to the chains of consumerism. They know that happiness is freely available. Happiness grows when watered. You can never buy happiness. You can only but things.

Love people. Buy things. When you understand you cannot buy people or love, and you should not love things you will realise your need for things will sharply decrease. Happiness lies in your hands. Not in your bank account or your wallet. That's where your money is.