Anyway so today I started thinking about my
upcoming birthday in less than one and half month and what I potentially wished
as birthday presents (less peace on earth, more rainforest and less carbon
dioxide emissions). However lost the thought of birthday presents after reading one of the papers for
my class in business sustainability:
“ That… consumptions is no longer
restricted to the necessities but, on the contrary, mainly concentrates on the
superfluities of life… harbors the grave danger that eventually no object of
the world will be safe from consumption and annihilation through consumption”
(Arendt 1958)
And since I am planning to be on the top of
Maslow’s pyramid…
“The need for self-actualization, according
to Maslow, becomes preeminent after the other four more basic needs are satisfied.
It would seem that of the needs, self-actualization has he least predictable
impact on consumer behavior. A person driven to achieve personal growth is more
likely to spend a frugal life, perhaps retire to an ashram or monastery, than
invest heavily in goods. The kind of persons Maslow used as models for
self-actualization – Thomas Jefferson, Eleanor Roosevelt, Albert Einstein,
Albert Schweizer – were not big spenders and in many ways strove to become
independent of the market”
Clearly it is on the top of the pyramid the
big thinkers and genies are. Forget designer bags as symbols for indicating your
superior and social worth and enhance your self-esteem. The real players strive
for self-actualization – which actually requires less goods.
In sum – I need nothing for my birthday
(except a greeting card I can recycleJ)
“Several researchers have shown that
excessive concern with financial success and material values is associated with
lower levels of life satisfaction and self-esteem, presumably because such
concerns reflect of “contingent worth” predicted on having rather than being”
I hope I inspire
Quotes from the great article “The cost and
benefit of consuming” by Mihly Csikszentmihalyi in the Journal of Consumer
Research
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