Black Friday
Black Friday is an uncomfortable reminder of the dangers of consumerism.
The marketing is so good — artificial scarcity & too-good-to-be-true discounts creates this intense desire to want to buy a bunch of things that were never needed.
Especially in the USA, so many of us are tricked into believing that we can solve our problems by buying things.
Having trouble with sleep? Buy sleeping pills.
Want to run faster? Buy the newest running shoes.
Want your place to be clean? Buy a robot vacuum cleaner.
We find shortcuts and then we buy them.
Buddhism talks about how the root of suffering comes from desire.
Yet the country runs on desire.
It’s on us to find a way to resist.
For me, that means confronting the difficulty of a problem head-on rather than look to buy something to make it go away.
I’ll probably still buy stuff next Black Friday. But maybe I’ll pass on the Roomba next time.