The Consumption Code

This week a very interesting concept struck.  Now this might be old news to others but it came as sort of an epiphany to me.

Life today, especially in the western world, is literally all about consumption.  So much so that companies and big businesses are now not all jockeying and vying for what’s in your wallet, they’re trying to grasp every waking moment of your life.  They want your attention.  They believe that if they get your attention and hold it for just long enough, it’ll eventually lead to your pockets.

Now ordinarily the blanket solution to this is to have more self control. 

All those standard things that you’ve already heard a million times, and truthfully should already be implementing.  These are all good and valid solutions but I think I may have found one that does a little more.  It’s essentially the same idea with a little nuance.

This is what I think: fighting against big business is an uphill battle.
It’s one that’s going to be very difficult to win.  This is not to say give up but now that you know the game, and you know the rules of the game, just get better at playing it.

It’s 2025.  You are already a consumer.  We all are.  Why don’t we just get better at it instead of fighting against it.  I don’t think minimalism is the answer either.  Yes it helps, but I don’t think it’s a solution that is nuanced enough. 

Instead of fighting the consumption, let’s reframe it, lean into the consumption.  Accept that you will consume and you will continue to consume.  With that as the baseline assumption, what’s left that is in your control.  Yep, you guessed it, you still have control of what you consume.

Now take that and arm yourself with it.  Give your best energy and your best effort to taking back control of what you consume.  

For example, I really like fizzy drinks (carbonated drinks) at least that’s the phase that I’m in now.  Instead of fighting it, now I just lean into drinking more sparkling water.  Now I know it isn’t better than actual water but it’s definitely not a soda.  I get the kick I need from the carbonation without the excess sugar intake.  That’s one way of controlling my consumption.

Another example is social media.  Once again, it’s 2025, instead of fighting against it embrace it.  Social medial is here to stay and it’s not going anywhere.  So instead fighting the doom scrolling on social media I took it off my primary phone and only put it on my work phone.  This is not to say I don’t end up scrolling aimlessly at times during the day, but I have way more instances of catching myself and getting back to work with the incoming calls and messages on the work phone, or better yet, getting back to my personal phone and actually communicating with friends and family.  People who matter more in life.

All in all, like the saying goes, “there’s more than one way to skin a cat.” I’m still trying to figure out what that means by the way.  I think there are many more ways and options available to us OG Millennials to take control of our consumption, while being current what the times, and still not feeling like we’re straying away from our core selves.