"New Consumerism" and Me!

For better or worse, American society as a whole can be characterized as malcontented and upward-striving. If you look back in time, as the first houses with electricity were being built, every American wanted their family to have a house with electricity. Then, as innovation spurred the development of radio, color television, and other products, a similar cycle of people’s desire to be on the forefront recurred. In a fatefully ironic spiral, people waste their lives always looking for progress in the future, rather than enjoying the time they are given. This seemingly unreasonable compulsion has led to the development of Juliet Schor’s “new consumerism.” Where a suburban house with two kids and a dog would have sufficed a decade ago, this self-imposed duress compels people to be dissatisfied with the status quo, and has thus pressed people to look even farther upward to the opulence and excess of the upper classes.

I think this unspoken insecurity and unfulfilled feeling exists as a root cause of Rifkin’s description of “high-tech stress.” Normally, the technology of the present would offer untold leisure as described by Schor. Instead, it has proven only to be a mechanism for further competition and prolonged work weeks. However, I think it is important to note that this technological progress is not the source of stress itself. Rather, it is the human operating the ubiquitous BlackBerry or IPhone that contributes to their own stress. Rifkin’s thesis of greater stress in the technology age is undeniable. Yet, the implicit theme that I found is that the technology itself only provides an avenue for us workers to exacerbate the already prominent problem of high stress. Like I mentioned in the paragraph above, the compulsion to work ever harder is not a foreign methodology introduced to people by complex technology, but instead a primitive and visceral instinct that we exercise in hopes of “getting ahead.”

I have found many ways of dealing with and/or avoiding stress at work and school. First, I only allow myself a set amount of time to devote to either of those facets in my life. These quotas help me predict and manage my time, which helps greatly in dealing with stress. Also, as another means of escaping the stress-filled realms of work and school, I play recreational sports whenever I have the chance. Like many other college-students, the act of kicking a soccer ball or jogging around campus can do wonders for alleviating a bit of stress. However, I wonder greatly to what extent will stress affect my life later on, when I will be working as an accountant or something similar. Undeniably, this job will be slightly more trying and stressful than the carefree life of a freshman college student.