PRB Photography

Two weeks living in a Dutch household this past summer was a life-changing experience.  Ian and I have both been rather disappointed by the American way of life since we returned.  Why is it that more is better, bigger is preferred, status precedes over home and happiness.  It doesn’t take a scientist to see that our country on the whole is stressed, sick, and in miserable shape.  We pop a pill to fix the symptoms but ignore the gaping wound that is causing us the pain in the first place.

The complicated life is not necessarily the happy life.

{If change can happen it must start with the individual}

We are making some life-long changes in the Burgoon household.  We are slowly trying to reduce the amount of ‘stuff’ we consume.  Don’t get me wrong.  We will ALWAYS be a tech-driven family.  But at least we might FOCUS our energy and our money toward what really matters to us.  The cable television gets disconnected this weekend.  It is essentially the first time in my life I am taking this drastic step.  With the advent of high-speed internet, computers, and Netflix, there is no longer a need in our eyes to pay outrageous sums of money per month for the ability to watch basic TV.  We would rather put our money toward the technology at our fingertips.  We just have to take the step to actually FOLLOW THRU with it.   It is a very slow process to start to reign in the addiction to consumerism and all the empty Americanisms we do every day that we take for granted.  We may never be there 100%.  But we are trying.  And, I truly expect that going cold-turkey without cable will NOT be such a big compromise.

Another example is food.  Today I watched Super Size Me on instant download thru Netflix, the film by Morgan Spurlock where he did an experiment to see how his health would be affected by consuming nothing but McDonalds meals for 30 days.  By the end he had gained a substantial amount of weight and was on the verge of a heart attack and liver failure.  He was in HORRIBLE health.  Appalling.  And, while it is true that most of us do not consume McDonalds on that regular basis, I cannot help but wonder what the effect is of the massive amount of chemicals and processed foods we DO live off as a whole.  What are we feeding our kids?  What are they eating at school?  I have changed my ways.  I successfully quit my lifelong addiction to soda a couple of months ago.  I cook my son a good, solid breakfast every morning and I have to wake up no earlier to do it.  I am very careful about what I put in his lunch and I encourage him to skip what they are serving at school.  And, dinner is almost always based on whole ingredients.

I believe that once you are aware of the ways our lives are steered by commercialism and consumerism, it is hard to not just follow the path without questioning WHY.  I wonder what crisis will have to occur before our country recognizes that as a whole?

{no turn – get churned thru the street of commercialism….}