The weather has been terrible so far this spring around here in my opinion, though perhaps some people will like sleet, hail and single digit temperatures with "midsummer"only five weeks away. The weather is as the weather does and while it might affect our mood, it doesn't care, because why would it?
I am currently sitting with a needle in my vein having the infusion treatment and can already feel the affects, the fog on my thoughts descending. It is always interesting to write at these times as I feel like I am even more mentally impaired than normal.
In a recent comment on a post, I mentioned how financial considerations often get the limelight, as they are so directly linked to our experience. We are always aware when we can't afford something and in a consumer society where all roads lead to purchasing something, we are constantly reminded of what we can't have.
Just today, I have had to consider what I can't afford multiple times as every discussion with the plumbers or the electrician have resulted in compromises because the preferred alternative is just too expensive to do, given our financial situation. This often seems the case, as there always seems to be a compromise decision of some sort and it might not matter in what economic bracket one appears. "I didn't buy the better private jet, I just couldn't warrant the expenditure."
This constant reminder of not being able to afford what we have been programmed to want, means that we are continually driven into a scarcity mindset through experience, that we can't have something because we do not have the resources available for it. This makes all kinds of things appear more valuable than they are, despite them being irrelevant to our actual needs. And when these things are driven by social conditioning, we want them even more and the influence of not having them might have a greater affect as they are compounded by the feeling of social inadequacy also.
We tend to get at least part of our sense of personal worth from referencing those around us and seeing how we are doing in relationship to our peers. The waters have been muddied greatly by resources no longer needing to be held in order to have though, with people satisfying their cravings through debt accrual. Two people that get the same salaries for example, could have very different material holdings - is the big house, car and branded clothing because the friend is better with money, or worse?
Debt is a killer and while we all know this, it keeps increasing in the world. The drive to have our demands met seems far stronger than our desire to make sure we have resources available - living on credit is the order of the day, year, decade and likely, century also. Our whole world is economically geared towards expenditure on disposable products to increase profits - and then we wonder why the environment is in such poor shape and appears irreparable.
We want better, but we don't want to go without, no matter how useless the items are we want are - and we will consistently choose debt to have them, no matter the future cost to ourselves and those around us. When we are constantly reminded by our surroundings of what we are missing, we seem to focus more on that than what we have got.
As I see it, we are what we eat and when we surround ourselves with advertising from companies which are looking to turn a profit by any means necessary, it is no wonder we spend and tend to overspend on what we are directed to buy. When we change our surroundings to support our economic health, do we start to become financially healthier?
I don't know about you, but I wouldn't mind a period where financial considerations didn't take so much attention and instead, I could focus on other things. The problem is, everything costs something.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
