When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.” Genesis 3:6 (NKJV)
Consumers – Part 3 – More Stuff
We constantly drum into our kids this mantra: “People are more important than things.”
We can see that if left unchecked, their inbuilt biological desires combined with the over-stimulation of those desires can lead to flipping this mantra the opposite way.
I briefly touched on the neurological effects of accumulating stuff in Part 1. It actually feels good to be a consumer; to buy things and have more. And for good reason…
It’s widely accepted that shopping (consuming) actually releases a feel-good neurotransmitter called dopamine. It rewards us with lovely feelings for hunting down that bargain or adorning ourselves with that luxury item.
What’s interesting is that dopamine can easily become a reward loop that drives the focus of an individual to be on whatever activities that cause its release. Over-riding more logical and rational thought processes and behaviours.
Drugs are often referred to as ‘dope’ because they flood the brain with dopamine. So you can see how this reward loop can become highly addictive and destructive, very quickly.
It’s not just associated with drugs either. Other addictive behaviours like gambling, sex, coffee, cigarettes, porn and not so surprisingly social media and texting are also ‘itchy fingers’ on the dopamine trigger.
Marketers are all too aware of this vulnerability in the human makeup and press on it all the time as a form of increasing sales. It’s no wonder they’ve coined the phrase “sex sells” and it kind of makes you feel violated and slightly icky to think that you can be leveraged and manipulated so easily. Kind of like a thief breaking into your home and stealing from you.
As with any addictive behaviour, awareness is half the journey to breaking it.
When Eve saw that the fruit was “good for food and pleasing to the eye” her biological weaknesses were being exploited and she was being deceived.
When you feel that “pang” of desire from the next commercial or advertisement, take a moment and ask yourself if that said ‘thing’ will bring any more lasting value to your life after the dopamine high dissipates.
A cool option, instead of stretching yourself financially or wracking up more credit card debt, is replacing it by doing something with longer lasting value. Like spending time with someone who is lonely, helping the kids do their homework, lending an ear to a person going through hard times, or simply just hanging out with loved ones.
Notice that most valuable and meaningful moments almost always include spending time with others; ‘spending' being the key word. It often ends up more valuable and fulfilling to spend ‘time' (the commodity that can never be regained) by investing and contributing to relationships than spending currency (the commodity which can be lost and reacquired) on filling our spare rooms.
Another option would be to sit in silence, still your thoughts and listen for the deep whisper of the Divine. It’s always there, but it’s been dulled by the noisy din of marketers hitting our ‘dope' button.
It’s the moments that don’t cost you a cent that hold the most value and give you a sense of greater worth in this lifetime.
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