Awash in a Sea of Consumption

A few years ago I was pretty militant about several things. I didn’t eat meat, I avoided big-box retailers (especially Wal-Mart), and I made my own beer in a series of five gallon buckets that lined my tiny apartment. I am not exactly sure when it happened, but somewhere along the way I quit caring. I quit caring about most things, and only feigned interest in others long enough to keep woefully-PC friends off my case. I now sit here several years later and wonder what ever happened to me.

This really hit home this Christmas when my son insisted that he wanted he a new TV for his bedroom. He already has a 20 inch flat screen with Direct TV and an Xbox 360, all stuff his mom and I bought him. It wasn’t enough, however. He informed us that he needed something closer to the 30 inch mark so he could see how to play his games better. I fell for this. I made myself crazy in the days just before Christmas shopping for him a new TV with all the bells and whistles. And then it occurred to me: I could buy a 52 inch plasma HDTV and just give him the TV from the living room, as that one is a paltry 36 inches. Before I knew it, I was standing in a big box electronics store with my new store credit card sizing up tv’s. As clearly as I hear myself typing on my keyboard, I could hear someone ask the question, “Who the hell are you?”

The quest to buy a ridiculously overpriced TV that we didn’t even need (we have 4 as it is!) spun me off into an existential crisis that has been going on the last few months. My family and I have become consumers of the worst sort, and sometimes I feel like we work our jobs just so we can have stuff…500 channels on the TV and satellite radio and two brand new vehicles and stainless steel appliances and a 3,000 square foot house…well…you get the picture. It is as if we had gone from just surviving when we first met to both of us making more money, and thus being less conscientious with our money the past few years. Now we are sitting here with a house full of stuff and it all feels rather like we in someone else’s home.

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with owning nice things. There is nothing wrong with nice homes or vehicles or anything else for that matter, but we have really lost our sense of balance. And it is not like we won’t off the deep end, either. We have also diverted a significant amount of money to paying off debt. In addition, we give about 6 times more to the church and other charitable organizations than we did just four years ago. This has been a topic of conversation now everyday for the past few weeks, especially since Mrs. LP and I have been home together more since our son was born. We’ve really been doing a lot of self-examination and looking at how we spend our money and time, trying to make better sense of our collective life. What does it mean to live more simply? I don’t mean abstractly, I mean that in the most sincere sense of the question? How do we re-prioritize our lives so that place higher premiums on those things we really value, like our family, our marriage, our spirituality?

We are beginning to take some small steps to reconnect to one another, to the earth, and to ourselves. We are planting an organic vegetable garden in our yard. We are shifting to more organic foods and less processed foods. We are trying to shift away from factory farmed meats (something very difficult). We are planning out meals and eating at home much more. We are turning off the television more. We’ve been talking and reconnecting with one another in significant ways.

We are attempting to return to the center.