The consumer’s rut

This is the time of year when the rut starts to kick in. The days get shorter–so painfully short that you feel around 7 p.m. as if it has been night forever, even though there are still many hours to go before bed. If you’re working, you are governed by 9-to-5 or 12-to-8 or 4-to-12 or whatever your schedule might be. If you are unemployed, you are governed by the unresponded to job queries that you have remitted into the ether and if you are in school, you are governed by exams and papers. At this time of year, it can be easy to feel like a bit of a prisoner.

I started to probe my rut a little bit more tonight rather than just let it set in as usual, and I realized, around the time I was walking through the warmly lit stalls of Union Square’s holiday market, that I was in the consumer’s rut. The consumer’s rut is the one that asks-what do I still not have? It dreams up the bigger apartment, the nicer clothes, the cooler life, and it pits those in the face of a grey reality. It must find what is cool now, only to reject it a few months later. It does not savor, it throws out. It is always looking for a better band, clothes store, bar or dessert and is always looking to reject the current favorite.

Because we are surrounded by advertisements that constantly tell us we do not have what we want, we feel this way and enter the rut. When I feel it most is when I’m shopping around the holidays. I think it is because I used to associate holiday shopping with cheer, whereas now I just associate it with debt, often useless crap and an unsustainable lifestyle.

The countervailing force that encourages us to try to appreciate what we have and make the most of it is much weaker, but it is important to channel, especially when faced with people exhorting us not to be happy with what material items we have.