Meaning In An Age of Consumerism

Somewhere along the way, we traded meaning for convenience, purpose for comfort, and the pursuit of a life well lived for the pursuit of a life well furnished. We built a society that promises everything except the one thing the human soul cannot live without, purpose.

It’s true that correlation isn’t always causation but research has consistently shown that a lack of meaning and purpose is associated with higher levels of psychological distress. In fact since the year 2000 suicide rates have increased by roughly 40% and 1 in 5 adults suffers from anxiety disorders. Such stats beg the question “what’s changed?”

Using the Stoic practice of boiling everything down to its simplest form, what we’ve truly lost is our relationships. We’ve become disconnected from our communities, from our families/friends, from the source of the food we eat and even from God.

In pursuing convenience and consumption, we’ve slowly severed the very connections that have always given human life its meaning.

Our communities now are all online, there’s no real connection there other than seeing what someone did on vacation, it’s a surface level relationship with no real substance. Unfortunately, even family and friends fall into this category. All too often, years fly by without any real interactions, we use excuses like work is too busy, or my kids sporting events take up all my free time. I’m guilty of this as well but deep down, I know we make time for the things that are important to us.

As for food, For nearly all of human history, survival required a direct relationship with the land. Today, well over 99% of Americans neither grow nor hunt the food that sustains them. We’ve outsourced one of humanity’s oldest and most fundamental relationships. We consume things without having the slightest idea on where it came from, how it died or how it was processed. When we never experience the effort, sacrifice and process behind the food we eat, we lose a connection that was once deeply woven into human life.

In the early 1970s, about 90% of Americans identified as Christian. Today, that number is closer to 60%, while the percentage of Americans identifying as religiously unaffiliated has grown from roughly 5% to around 30%. While faith has never been the only source of meaning, for generations it provided people with a moral framework, a sense of community, and a connection to something greater than themselves.

The tragedy of a life lacking conviction is not that it has no choices, it is that it has no compass. When nothing is held as sacred, everything becomes negotiable.

It’s not all doom and gloom, we can solve all these issues before “the machine has taken the soul from the man” and our AI overlords start doing our thinking.

If you feel lost, start by building the most important relationship of all, your relationship with God. When you open your heart to Him, He meets you there and begins to fill the emptiness that nothing else can satisfy.

One of the unexpected gifts of following the Lord is the community that comes with it. Through faith, you begin to develop deeper and more meaningful relationships with family and friends, while also finding the strength to forgive those who have hurt you. In reconnecting with God, you often find yourself reconnecting with the people around you.

The solution is not to reject modern life, but to stop allowing convenience to replace connection. Call your family. Sit around a table without a phone. Plant something. Learn where your food comes from. Serve your community. Seek God. Meaning is not something we find, it is something we build through the commitments we choose.