Consumerism vs Happiness in America

We are always bombarded with advertisements and marketing sales that it’s only normal if we no longer buy just our essential needs like food, shelter, and clothes. People often want more than they have now, more money, better cars, a bigger home and more clothes. No matter where we go, we see TV commercials, newspaper ads and all kinds of flyers intriguing us to buy more and more stuff even if we don’t leave our homes. They know how to make specific products appeal to both women and men and they know how to change our “wants” to something we “need”, for example many of the beauty product companies advertise their product as a “need” which appeals to a verity of women. This just helps us see that half the things we buy are completely pointless and is a waste of money. However, without all of us buying these products, many people would be out of jobs and employment. This is how the world works. We buy things to help shape the world and we think were helping the world, when in reality we are killing it. This essay will be explaining the meaning of a consumerist worldview and to what extent do I see myself part of this worldview.

For some reason, the more we consume, the happier we feel. But is this really true? Most people believe that they would be happier if they were wealthier. This is how consumption, consumerism and over consumption come in. Annie Leonard, the writer of The Story Of Stuff, gives her definition of these words. Leonard tells us that while consumption means having and using goods and services to meet one’s needs, consumerism is a certain relationship to consumption in which we meet our emotional and social needs through shopping, and we define and show ourselves through the stuff we own. Meaning we state ourse...

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...todays we all feel like money is the most important and powerful thing. However, if you take a look back a couple of years ago or in other countries that are not wealthy, you could see that they’re happy with what they have. They don’t need TV, expensive clothes, and nice watches. At the moment when we want something we feel like if we buy it were going to be happy. For that moment I can agree that a sense of happiness does accrue, yet that happiness fades away with time. So why should we consume so much to a level that is no longer sustainable and destroying our world day by day.

Works Cited

Leonard , Annie. The Story of Stuff. New York: 2010. Print.

Salutin , Rick. "Happiness is not a right but a state of mind." 16 Feb 2012: n. page. Print. .