I am really “fed-up” with being only thought of as a “consumer!”

Here we are with years of world financial problems that we’re trying to solve, years of massive “consumer” spending and over-spending, debt and mortgage crises, foreclosures, people losing jobs and layoffs, not enough money to make ends meet…  and yet the message in our culture is to spend more money!  Money we don’t have. Yikes!

We are being marketed to and solicited from every direction!  Everywhere you go, there’s advertising on billboards, sides of cars, mailboxes, endless commercials on radio and TV, saturated in magazines and newspapers, in restrooms, on sidewalks, online on virtually every website.  I picked up a roll of toilet paper, and there was an ad on it! We live in a sea of consumer marketing.  Even when we buy something, there are more ads on the packages to buy something else!

We are supposed to spend, spend, spend.  Eat more.  Oversize.  Biggie-size.  CONSUME!

Yes, there’s the argument that we all have to market and sell our wares in order to make a living.  There’s advertising even on this blog I write.  There will always be selling and marketing, it’s as old as time and not going away.

I for one am making an effort to be even more conscious of my consumption.  I am consciously making an effort to NOT be fooled or affected by the commercial sea.  I know in my heart that I am a human-being with ideas, thoughts, feelings, concerns, artistic sensitivities, compassion, care, with physical, mental and spiritual needs and gifts to offer others.

I am not just “a consumer.”  I am not just a robot that spends and uses and eats, more and more and more.