Unlike my usual posts, today I wanted to talk about who has the power for change. We all think that it is the corporate powers that be that dictate everything and in many ways that is true. They can buy markets, stomp out small businesses, influence through advertising and push their weight around in ways that make it feel like we as the consumers are at their will. It can feel like we are trapped and victims of a world we never asked for.
The truth of the matter is that even with all that push and pull we, as the consumers, create the demand that those global capitalism machines run on. When you make purchases you are casting your vote and speaking your voice for what we all together value and ethically allow. If we continuous make choices in habitual ignorance than we are as much to blame as those corporate conglomerates for the state of so many issues effecting our world from sex trafficking to climate change. It is time to become more informed, more conscious, more self aware and more enlightened of our own power in the eco system of consumerism.
I have been meditating on all the marketing pushes by corporate powers to, in theory, do good. Things like recycle products, use reusable straws, use reusable shopping bags. These are all great habits for us all to adopt don’t get me wrong. Something feels off though when you look into it. It struck me that at the end of the day these powerful corporate companies are now using their influence to put the responsibility of global solutions for things like plastic reduction on the common consumer leaving them as the source of these pollutions completely free from responsibility. This is why now more than ever your choices as consumers matter.
We have come to a time where no longer do our choices purely create demand for what we value, but are also the fingers that point and the strong voices that say in unison no longer will we be apart of child labor. No longer will we poison the waters with chemical waste. No longer will we allow human trafficking. No longer will we be party to the suffering of creatures in this world. No longer will we harm ourselves, our families and our neighbors. No longer will we watch in silence as all life on planet earth goes silent.
I urge you to think about what world you want to live in. What matters to you? What will you allow? Dedicate yourself to those ideals or re-dedicate yourself as the case may be. Be the enlightened consumer that is the power and is the voice of a better tomorrow for all.
The Enlightened Consumer 