This post originally appeared on Scoutie Girl and is reprinted with permission. It speaks to the New Consumer paradigm of Purposeful Pleasure. What can brands do to imbue their goods and services with greater meaning and longer-lasting satisfactions?

We live in a disposable culture. Our lives are like giant landfills. We’re surrounded by junk.

We pay 99 cents to download disposable music. We drive through “restaurants” making disposable food. We wear disposable clothes so we don’t ever have to be without the latest trend. We create relationships—families even—that have disposable bonds. The entirety of our culture can be thrown away and bought anew.

“There’s a reason we say ‘put your money where your mouth is.’ Where we put our resources—time, love, cash—on a daily basis creates, demonstrates and confirms our commitments.” —Kelly Diels

Kelly says, money = commitment. I couldn’t agree more. We can’t commit to quality, to things that last a lifetime. We can’t commit to things that nurture us instead of make us sick. We have a serious problem with commitment.

And so we have a serious problem with money: the way we earn it, the way we save it, the way we spend it.

There’s nothing wrong with stuff, with consuming. But when we treat our stuff like it has no value—because it doesn’t—that attitude creeps into other parts of our life. Our “commitment problem” doesn’t just reflect outwardly—we stop even committing to ourselves.

We don’t commit to our education, our creativity, our bodies, our psyches, our circumstances. We are constantly looking for the cheap way out.

Goods that do not nurture our homes, our lives, or our families are disposable. Food that does not nurture our bodies is disposable. Relationships that do not nurture our souls are disposable. We don’t have to commit to them. And we owe them nothing in return.

Deciding we’re going to commit to spending money on an art class or music lesson, a vine-ripened tomato picked from the farm in the next town over, a professional to service our business, or a piece of handmade clothing is not so much a commitment of money, it’s a commitment to yourself and to the rebuilding of our culture. It’s a choice to consume something of real value that nurtures others as much as it nurtures you.

What are you committing to today? What have you decided is indispensable instead of disposable?

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| Tags: commitment, conscious consumption, culture, disposable, food, Kelly Diels, mindful consumption, money, New Consumer, Retail, Scoutie Girl, simplicity movement, sourcing, Tara Gentile, values, waste
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This entry was posted on Thursday, August 26th, 2010 at 9:05 am and is filed under Consumerism, New Consumer, Purposeful Pleasure, Shopping, Uncategorized, Value, Values. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.