Consume less, live more - take some time to stand back from your life, away from influences like consumerism, and think about what really matters to you in life and how you want to live.
In the United States since World War II, per capita income has tripledbut levels of life satisfaction remain about the same, while the people of Japan, despite experiencing a sixfold increase in income sincehave seen their levels of contentment stay largely stagnant.
Needless to say, this is exposure to a lot of advertisements! It creates impossible aspirations — quite simply, the principles it is based on make it a logical impossibility that it will make us happy.
So, consumerism pretends to be able to meet our real needs — but it can not. Another less commonly discussed definition of consumerism involves buyers knowing their rights in seeking protection from being unfairly treated or being taken advantage of by merchants.
Much of the debate over how to address the economic crisis has focused on a single word: regulation.
This is not surprising — if the system is not aimed at meeting human needs and interests, but at generating profit, then it will only be a matter of extreme luck that it ends up doing the former.
SMU's Dr Seshan said that "perhaps the most serious cost is human well-being", adding that much research on the psychology of well-being shows that the most reliable predictor of long-term happiness is building and maintaining many positive long-term human relationships.
There is no reality in a world of consumerism.