No, I’m not talking about Zen and business. I’m hopping on the thread that Steve Olson started on The Emotional Emptiness of Consumer Culture.
Alternet also published an article by Oliver James, Is Selfish Capitalism Driving Us Mad?
It’s one of the oldest spiritual teachings on the planet: material goods will bring you no lasting pleasure or satisfaction. And, what Steve observed first-hand, and what Mr. James wrote about is something that spiritual teachers have been tellings us for millennia.
So why is our culture caught in such a stranglehold of material acquisition?
One word: addiction.
Addiction has some bad connotations in our culture, but we’re all addicted. I’m addicted to food and water- I can’t survive without them. On a more serious note, I’m addicted to sugar, and to overwork, and to the internet even, to a certain extent.
What I mean by addiction is that these are things I turn to when I’m feeling emotionally upset. Instead of facing my emotions, or the deeper needs of my soul, I’ll eat some chocolate. Or spend countless hours on blogs and forums. Instead of doing spiritual practice, or talking a walk outside, or even giving and getting a nourishing hug from my wife, I’ll do these other things.
And much of business and marketing supports these unhealthy choices. In fact, they depend on these all-too-human impulses to survive and grow their businesses.
The big question: can we have an economy without addiction?
For those of you who are involved in what I call a ‘transformational business’- a business that’s involved in providing products and services that are meant to be healthy, nourishing and supportive- transformational- to the people who buy them, this is the moral and ethical struggle you face when you go to market your business.
You need to use tactics in marketing that work. And you need to actually connect with people. But how do you do it without sacrificing your values, or contributing to the emptiness and depression of our consumer culture?
Starting tomorrow, and into next week, I’m going to be exploring how you can market to the ego without exploiting addictive tendencies, and how you can include the heart and soul, without getting drowned out by the messages of addiction “chocolate, or personal transformational work? Hmmm…”
But, for right now, I’d love to ask your opinion: Do you think we can have a thriving, healthy economy without businesses that rely on addiction?
