Buying an Identity, Destroying the World

The way we as American’s tend to view ourselves is based on our possessions. We buy certain clothes in order to portray ourselves a certain way to others. But not only are we buying things for the wrong reasons, we’re buying TOO MANY things for the wrong reasons. It seems that nowadays there is so much more of everything! There’s one car for every driving member of a household, there’s one TV for every room in the house, everyone has their own cell phone, laptop, and numerous other electronics. This overconsumption is harmful not only to our pocketbooks and our self esteems but also to the environment. With all this buying a lot is going to waste. We’re throwing away products as we aquire new ones and the waste is absolutely tremendous. It’s beautifully illustrated in Faustian Economics when it is said, “our national faith so far has been: there’s always more”.  It’s crazy how we can use and use and use and think that there will be no consequences to our actions. Eventually we’ll run out of things like oil and fossil fuels and then what? We have little alternatives as of right now. Our overconsumption needs to slow down if science is ever going to be able to catch up.