Reflection About Shopping

In this day and age, almost every person is monopolized with the need to keep purchasing tons and tons of products. As a result, it appears to be a major problem of how much stuff we are producing these days. Every day the average person is buying and buying stuff that is not always important or needed. Consequently, Shopping is based upon wanting instead of something that would be necessary for day to day life. It feels like at least here in America that Americans are drowning in the amount of stuff that they own, they have more than they know what to do with. On the other hand, if people have more than they can bargain for then that means a lot more stuff is thrown away in order to fit more stuff in a home. There are several crucial questions

After watching the Story of Stuff video I started to think, is it really true that a majority of what we do is to shop. I thought there's no way I contribute to the golden arrow of consumption but the sad truth is, I do. I constantly look around my room and know that I do not need most of the things in there. I think of all the times my parents spent so much to buy me things that at the time seem like a good idea. The thing is in my family we show how much we love each other with food, thats how its always been, there's no love in things unless it's been homemade. We know how important it is to give back and also to contribute to the economy by purchasing necessities. My parents have always taught us that it is more important to give then it is to receive. I contribute to the parts of the cycle known as recycle and reuse by constantly every two weeks we donate most of our clothes and items that we do not use to a veterans organization that accepts donations. Even though I am a biomedical science major all I ever was interested in was figuring out how things work and most importantly how to fix them. I tend to try and fix what has broken before I go out and purchase something new. My grandfather usually sets aside the things that stop working around his house so I can fix them when I visit. My family and I constantly accumulate soap, food, reusable water bottles, toothpaste and toothbrushes, and clothes to make care packages with. Once we have a good amount of packages made we drive around San Francisco handing them out to homeless people and delivering them to shelters. In all honesty all of this is small compared to everything that needs to be done to help save our planet. To be honest the only big thing I do to help make a change is how much I plant in a given year. I grow most of all the vegetables and fruits my family