Only one day after Thanksgiving, the world goes mad with discounted shopping. Only one day after expressing thanks for what people already have, they go out and buy more. Only one day after giving thanks, people forget what it is that they were thankful for. It seems like Black Friday has more hype than Thanksgiving. On this so-called 'holiday' that trumps over the real holiday, an obsession with materialism becomes frightfully apparent. We are being controlled by materialism because we have been brainwashed to care too much about what other people think about our stuff.
Black Friday is NOT the only day where we become victims of a materialistic society. It is simply the day that gets the most attention. This may or may not have to do with the fact that people wait in lines for hours, even days, and risk their lives to save money. We are never satisfied with what we have and fall into the trap of buying the bigger and better product each and every day. TV ads constantly remind us of what we don’t have and make us feel unsatisfied with what we do. Why? So that we’ll buy more. The constant presence of commercialism has completely changed the modern way of thinking. We live in a society that places more importance on a name brand than it does on what really matters.
Some (but not all) companies focus more on how much money they can make rather than their customer’s satisfaction. If a company does happen to place importance on the overall well-being of the customer, it does so by making it appear that the customer will only be satisfied if he or she purchases that product. For example, wearing a certain brand of makeup will make you more beautiful, wearing a particular brand or style of clothing will make you more confident and purchasing a specific exercise machine will make you lose more weight. These are the exact ideas that these companies want us to develop. But what they don’t know is that what we already have, the things that can't be bought, are enough.
The unconditional love of a family, the support of friends and the satisfaction of success are only a few examples of the things that we really need to survive. In no way am I saying that no one should go out and make an expensive purchase or stop making purchases altogether. It’s nice to go out and get spoiled every once in a while. All I’m saying is that we should divert our attention from blinding, excessive purchases to the nonmaterialistic gifts sitting right in front of us. It is time to stop getting wrapped up in materialism and start focusing on the treasures that life has to offer.
