Occupy Yourself

I will give one thing to the “occupy people”, they have really got me thinking about our consumerist society and the way people avoid blaming themselves for what is inherently their fault.

And my fault.

And your fault.

We can sit around all day and protest big business and Wall Street and make ourselves feel better. The bottom line is that it will probably not make any difference whatsoever because we will continue to do things to keep those big businesses and Wall Street moving the way they always have.

I wonder how many of the occupy people own the new iPhone 4S? Or any other smart phone for that matter?

I’m sure it is many of them because they post to twitter constantly.

One of the things I do for money is search marketing for a large internet retailer. It’s a good job. I like the people I work with.

It pays the bills.

We carry a lot of high end products. Products that I could never afford. This does not bother me because I have never and don’t ever see myself wanting them. But I do see it bothering many of my co-workers. Coveting the shiny new whatever that just got added to the website. It doesn’t matter if they have something similar in their home, they want the new one.

The iPhone 4S (and other products like it)  is the epitome of this mentality. The day it came out people were talking about how they had been standing in line for hours to get their hands on it. How they couldn’t wait to pull it out and play with it.

I have a feeling that day was highly unproductive for many people.

If the occupy people really wanted to make an impact they wouldn’t be out there protesting Wall Street, or downtown New Orleans, or Iowa or anyplace else. They would be protesting the people buying the new iPhone, or Blu-Ray player, or any other shiny new device that is driving our consumerist society. They would be protesting the person sitting next to them fingering their keyboard posting their latest update.

They would be protesting their self.

Because that is the real problem.

We want to yell and scream about the oppression of modern society and how unfair things are. But if we simply stopped feeding the beast it would eventually die. We are driving the very machine we are against.

If you want to power change you need to do so from the inside out. Stop buying. Stop feeding every single desire you have. Of course, we all have desire and nothing will ever change that. The problem lies in our inability to curb them.

And this inability is the very thing that has allowed Wall Street and mega-corporations to grow and thrive. And it is the very reason it will probably never stop.

The solution is simple. If you want to instill change, start by changing yourself.

I doubt that will happen, however, as much as I hope it will, because it sure is nice to have that brand new iPhone.