awareness of our excessive consuming. Having the opportunity to travel to a poverished country myself, I have found myself with an increasing awareness of my consumerism. I distinctly remember walking out of the “Barra Payan” sandwich shop with a grin on my face, excited to devour the sandwich I had spent no more than 3 dollars on. As I continued to walk out, a young boy approached me, and in his broken English asked if I would give him just a bite of my sandwich. He had no shoes on, a shirt that had been worn to the seams and swim suit meant for a toddler, though he managed a crooked little smile as he asked. The disparage on his face was eminent though, and he wavered my heart. Haphazardly, I preceded to hand him my entire sandwich. Hugging me, he ran off devour the sandwich I had just bought. Being down in the Dominican Republic for a week, I found myself aware of my extensive consumerism I display on a day to day basis, while people can hardly have enough food to survive. Though having a singular day in America may not be to this extreme, I strongly feel that it would be an important way of helping raising the awareness of this problem in America today. Though on one hand I feel it would be a positive idea to establish an annual “Buy Nothing Day”, I must negate the idea of it.
As is, America is nothing but nation living for excess and ease. No matter where we drive, or wherever we may go, there is that unsaid rule that you must aim for the best. I am sure you have had that memorable experience of driving by the cherry red Ferrari and with a little jealousy you envy to have that car. Or you go into Five Guys to get a burger and you see the guy in front of you ask for every topping on his burger. So you say to hell with it, I am doing what I want, and all those toppings will be on my burger. I have seen this countless times. In a nation where we squander countless hours shopping and impulse buying, there is no way a vast amount of people would participate in a day such as purposed. With that stated, I must strongly negate the idea of an annual “Buy Nothing Day”, simply due to the fact of it is nothing our culture is accustomed to. Correspondingly, we as Americans are extremely narrow minded and would not be willing to integrate such a
day. Consequently, I must negate the idea of integrating a day such as this due to how consumer dependent our society is. You can hardly drive a mile these days without seeing something you can buy. I live in a town by the name of Castle Rock Colorado, and in our town we have a Home Depot, and a Lowes just a mile down the road. Why our town needs two home improvement stores is beyond me. Maybe it is the completion between each company, or possible which has more inventories. This is a classic example of what our culture is here in America. Same goes for gas stations. There is one intersection with 3 gas stations. All of which, trying to entice you with slightly lower gas prices, or the world’s best selection of junk food. Competition is what drives our economy and in pushing to try to encourage a day to not buy anything, completely degrades the idea of our moral values as Americans whether I agree with them or not. Since our society singularly runs mostly on big business, the idea of this day exalts the things we hold so dearly as Americans. Alongside this, the first time trying to implement such a day is near impossible, and would be strenuous to all people who live in America. In looking deeply into imposing a “Buy Nothing Day” in America, I strongly agree with the fact that for some it may raise some awareness temporarily. Though I agree, I must also negate the implementation of this day because it would be hard to gain participation as well as the strenuous tasks of difficulty in integrating a day such as this due to how consumer dependent our society is.