I keep talking about saving the human race on this blog, and I realize that a certain number of you don't really realize what that means.
So, I figured I'd explain.
You see, the way we're living isn't sustainable for two reasons:
We're very unhappy.
We're destroying the planet.
One of the main reasons that I'm so into minimalism, is it solves both of these problems.
Why your friends are unhappy.
Someone emailed me the other day and asked "do you really think people live the way you describe?" Meaning Hummer-driving TV-watching coca-cola-sucking dumb people that I talk about all the time.
YES! They do. In fact, most people are living this way in America right now. The average TV watched by Americans is 35 hours a week. That's like a second job dedicated entirely to a medium which convinces you to buy stuff.
On the TV you see happy smiling faces walking out of the mall with three bags stuffed full of junk, and you think you're supposed to act this way.
Now, obviously you don't live this way, but your friends do, right?
The problem with mass consumerism.
The thing about this whole equation is that buying a lot of stuff radically decreases your ability to be a happy person.
When you buy stuff in order to be happy, you get addicted to the little jolts of adrenaline you get when you drop $259 on a pair of shoes. Then you go home and realize you already have seventy pairs of shoes and you start to feel sad immediately. So you jump back into your human wheel pod and drive back to the mall to drop more money on shoes, instantly feel happy, until you drive home again.
Repeat and repeat and repeat. It's the endless cycle of consumerism, and it's why your friends are on anti-depressants.
How did we get here?
The TV was the ONLY way to get information short of reading actual books and going to college before the Internet. Television studios make more money when they put more ads that convince you to buy more stuff in between their shows. This makes you want to buy more shoes, because OMG you absolutely must dress like SJP If you want to save the human race, there's a very cool opportunity available right now. Karol Gajda convinced a whole bunch of us authors to package all of our ebooks together for the low price of $27. So, if you ever wanted to read every single book from Smalltopia to The Luxury of Less, now is the time to act (before Oct 7.) The Art of Being Minimalist is in the package, along with 10+ other books. Check out the details here.