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Natural Life Magazine, March/April, 2008 Taken as a whole, we North Americans are overfed but undernourished. Socially, psychologically and physically, we are not fully meeting human needs. Although the TV commercials would have us believe that every itch can be scratched with a trip to the mall, the truth is we’re consuming more now but enjoying it less. According to surveys taken by the U.S. National Science Foundation for the past 30 years, even with steady increases in income, our level of overall happiness has actually tapered off. Why? Many believe it’s because a lifestyle of over-consumption creates deficiencies in things that we really need, like health, social connections, security and discretionary time. These deficiencies leave us vulnerable to daily lives of dependency, passive consumption, working, watching and waiting. The typical urban resident waits in line five years of his or her life; spends six months sitting at red lights, eight months opening junk mail, a year searching for misplaced items and four years cleaning house. Every year, the typical high school student spends 1,500 hours in front of the tube compared with 900 hours spent at school. And this in not just an American addiction: A 2004 French survey representing 2.5 billion people in 72 countries documented an average of 3.5 TV hours watched every day! Yet, the game is changing. Just as we approach an all-time peak in consumption, converging variables like shrinking resource supplies, runaway debt and, most critically, climatic and biological instability will necessitate changes in the way we live. Here’s the good news: Reducing our levels of consumption will not be a sacrifice but a bonus if we simply redefine the meaning of the word “success.” Instead of more stuff in our already-stuffed lives, we can choose fewer but better things of higher quality, fewer visits to the doctor, more visits to museums and the houses of friends and greater use of our hands and minds in creative activities like playing a flute or building a new kitchen table. If we are successful as a culture, we’ll get more value from each transaction, each relationship and each unit of energy. By reducing the waste and carelessness that now litter our economy – energy hogs like aluminum cans and plastic bottles, huge thirsty lawns, excessive airplane travel, feedlot meat and suburbs – we can finance the coming transition to a lifestyle that feels more comfortable in the present and doesn’t clear-cut the future. Value Shift Imagine a way of life that’s culturally richer but materially leaner. In this emerging lifestyle, there is less stress, insecurity, pollution, doubt and debt, but more vacation time, more solid connections with nature, more participation in the arts, amateur sports and politics. There is greater reliance on human energy – fueled by complex carbohydrates – and less reliance on ancient sunlight stored as pollution-filled fossil fuel. There are fewer fluorescent hours in the supermarket, more sunny afternoons out in the vegetable garden. Instead of being passive consumers... To read the rest of this article, subscribe to Natural Life's online edition. David Wann is author of nine books including the newly released Simple Prosperity: Finding Real Wealth in a Sustainable Lifestyle, and the best selling Affluenza. Find out more at www.davewann.com. |
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