Why abundance can lead to complacency

Abundance is a kind of self-help buzzword these days, yet in western “developed” countries it could be said that we have too much abundance, of material things at least.

We're so used to abundance that we take it for granted, and this has led us towards a convenience society where many material things are seen as easily replaceable, and not valued.

While material things are often not valued, production IS highly valued. From a young age it is drummed into us that it's a good thing to be productive; to get up as early as possible and produce, produce, produce.

But much of what we produce is thrown away. Much (though not all) of what we produce is just trash!

Valuable veggies

I was thinking about all this as I made soup the other day. I was using vegetables that I order as a regular veg box delivery from a shop called Locavore. The veggies are grown with a lot of love and care using time and effort rather than chemical pesticides. They are sold at an incredibly good value price - £10 (about $13) for a “medium” box.

I recently posted about an event I attended that was hosted by Locavore, that was focused on the subject of waste.

Because they are grown without the use of pesticides or irradiation, they go off more quickly than shop-bought vegetables. If I don't get round to using them quickly enough, and they start to go off, there's always that thought in the back of my mind that I could just buy some more veggies at the supermarket.

This is how our material abundance makes put less value on what we have. We take it for granted. It's also because we're so busy. We set ourselves so many targets to produce so much, to do so much, that we can't keep up, and that's when things get thrown away. I found myself thinking about this as I made the soup. I needed to go out, so I was rushing it. But soup making can be an enjoyment in itself, if we take time to chop the vegetables carefully, to grind the spices, to enjoy each part of the process.

I like the idea of initiatives like the slow food movement - I think there's even a slow clothes movement! I have tried to slow down in my own life. After I was made redundant in 2009 I started my own business. I liked the idea that I could choose to work my own hours and just do the work I needed to do, but of course I ended up working all hours.

I love this quote from Ellen Goodman:

"Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to a job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, car and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it."

Abundance can be a wonderful thing, but we need to make that abundance valuable and not take it for granted so that it just becomes yet more trash to throw away.

My video is at DLive