Living Simply challenge Day 24: The Matrix

          Have you seen the movie The Matrix with Keanu Reeves? If not I'll try to sum up the plot for you. A guy who's going through life feeling like there's got to be more out there, like something is wrong with this world but he can't seem to put his finger on it. Then he finds out that the world he thinks is real is just a dream. His real body is being kept alive in a dreaming state. Everything he thought was his real life was just a program designed to keep him asleep. Without revealing everything else, this description is enough to start today's challenge - waking up to see the matrix for what it is.

     What matrix are you caught in? The matrix of consumerism, the race to be (and to only take care of) "number one". The accumulation of things makes others envious of you and that's supposed to be the goal - to be "somebody" - to have it all before you die. Did you know those ideas are not your own? They're the programming we in America have been given to manipulate us into buying stuff we don't need, with money we don't have, to impress people we don't like. Here's 3 examples of how consumers are being manipulated:

1.  The obvious is the Keeping Up with the Jones' scenario. You like your house until you visit someone with a better one. You like your car until your neighbor gets a better one. You buy labels that advertising portrays as the key to getting ahead. If you wear a designer's label, whether on clothing, on a purse, etc. then you can pretend you're part of an elite society that's somehow better than everyone else just because you own and display someone else's name. American's carry over $764 billion dollars of credit card debt. That's 764 BILLION dollars worth of stuff (minus a few for education, buying necessities like groceries, and travel expenses for emergencies). That's insane! Don't people remember just a few years ago when many people lost their homes, trashed their credit, and had to declare bankruptcy because they were too far in consumer debt? Stop buying stuff you don't need. It's killing you, financially.

2.  The less obvious is the clothing industry. It used to be that clothes came in two seasons, warm weather and cold weather. You bought boots, coats, pants, snowsuits for the kids, all at the same time of year. Then you bought bathing suits, shorts, t-shirts, and tank tops the other time of year. The clothing industry then began rotating seasons in a 4 season cycle. Still not too bad I guess, if you live in a place where all 4 seasons really are different. But now, in the last few years, the clothing industry has changed. It now creates, markets, and sells things in 30 DAY CYCLES! As soon as you purchase something you're made to feel it's almost immediately out of date so you'll buy more. And the more expensive the label, the shorter the life of that season. Do you have a closet full of stuff you never wear? Almost all American households do. If you don't wear it, or take it off as soon as you put it on because you never really did like it, then WHY are you holding onto it? Give it away, donate it, toss it, but stop hanging onto it. Anything you haven't worn or used in a year should belong to someone else.

3.  The most insidious is the food industry. Did you know they spend millions of dollars every year to manipulate you into buying their foods. Here's just a few tactics used:

- Fake ads: milk makes cereal soggy so in photos, it's glue, steaming hot food is really a sponge or cotton ball microwaved and hidden carefully to look like steam coming off the food, shiny fruit in ads are actually sprayed with hair spray, antacids are used to simulate more soda pop bubbles, etc.

- Psychologists do test studies where they, for example, observe how much potato chips people eat before they stop. Then they design a single serving bag to be a few ounces shy of that so you'll be tempted to open a second bag, since the first one didn't satisfy you.

- They inject food with all kinds of chemicals to simulate a better taste because you'd never eat it with all the fillers and junk they use (google things like "pink slime" and "sawdust" in hamburgers). They make foods have a different mouth feel than they should, they use toxic sweeteners to trigger the addiction areas of your brain so you'll eat more and buy more. Check out online information about how diet sodas make people fatter and sicker.

- In the grocery store, healthy cereals are placed on the very top and very bottom shelves. The shelves at eye level cost much more for a manufacturer to "rent". They put the most expensive, most modified, unhealthiest foods at eye level. In the cereal aisle, there's a multi-billion dollar industry that designs packaging, commercials, and displays at the eye level of children riding in shopping carts so they'll beg and shout in the store for their particular unhealthy cereal.

- Grocery stores alter everything from lighting to scents they design in certain areas of the store. It's no surprise they make sure there's rotisserie chicken and bakery smells as you walk by those areas in the store. Some is real, I'll give you that, but there are MANY companies that purposely spray scents in overhead vents in areas to make you desire and buy their products. Some very unethical grocery stores were caught on the news a few years back putting altered lighting above meat counters to make the meats appear different than their actual color to look more appealing to the eye. And never buy a package of flavored chicken or beef in the meat department! They take old, discolored meat, like beef that was bright red but is now turning more brown due to original air exposure, and they inject it with red dye and add flavorings to cover it up like say, "Chipotle Hamburger Patties". Those packages of pre-seasoned/pre-flavored chicken, like lemon pepper, is also older meat that's been altered to look and taste fresher, then repackaged.

     Don't fall for the matrix of marketing. Open your eyes to what's really going on. Do your research online to find out who's trying to manipulate you into parting with your hard-earned money. Ethics are no longer a thing in the business world (with the exception of a few organic or smaller family companies). It's all about the money. Do your homework and you'll find almost every product in the grocery store is manufactured by one of only a handful of companies:
   

     Be smart. Shop wisely. Be aware of your shopping. What's driving your purchase? Is it marketing gimmicks or are you only purchasing what you need, when you need it, knowing it's not just a "want", it's a "need", and is it something that will bring you joy?