One of my guilty pleasures is watching housing hunting television shows. You know the ones where people pick apart potential future homes, over-reacting about the things they don't like about a house, gushing about gas ranges and wanting homes with "character". One big selling point is always if a house has potential, the future ability to personalize it how they specifically want it.
A recent commercial, for a specialized television service shows various people, from different age groups, genders, ethnic back grounds. The whole point of this service is that you can specialize it exactly how you want it, a cute blond little girl exclaims promising "TV for me!"
Everything these days is personalized, specialized for the individual consumer. There are milieu of options in purchase choices, each producer or retailer trying to find the exact product that will fill your "need". Your bank offers personalized checking programs, your gym offers levels of commitment and cost, your diet plan will deliver all your food to your home "personalized just for your needs!", .....
These are only a few examples of the increasing emphasis on the individual. You don't like those baseboards in that house? But the room has potential and you can totally redo it! You don't like to go to the bank to make a deposit? You can scan your check with your smart phone! You don't like that song on the radio? You can listen to Pandora and personalize your own radio station!
Now, obviously there are extremes in needs. If a house doesn't fit your basic needs, or a bank is going to charge you exorbitant fees, you should have another option. But when there are so many options that allows people to be so demanding and specific ("These light fixtures are too modern!") we Americans are totally loosing the big picture. Our needs are so overly met that we have all become spoiled.
And this is the environment that America's children are growing up in. Is it any wonder that they are painted as the "entitled generation"? They have grown up having every basic need met, and every desire couched as a "need" by advertisement and media. A iphone is a basic need, a new car is a need, a college education is seen as the minimum requirement in education, a monster sized flat screen TV is every room, and food on demand with no effort is expected.
These conditions do not produce independent, consciousness, productive adults. These conditions produce hibernating slugs. But is it any wonder when they have grown up in a world with no understanding or expectation of actual hard work.
I recently moved across town. The most frustrating part of this process for me was that every place I went to look at started with, "So what are you looking for?" And I didn't have an answer. I didn't have a must have list of appliances, flooring, open-concept, or color. And I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with knowing what you like. But I tend to lean in the opposite direction. I find what is available and I make it work for me. I eventually found a small place and I love it. But my search with so difficult for me, because the mindset of the people I was working with was, "let's examine your every desire and fulfill them," as opposed to here's something that will meet your basic needs, which is all I needed.
I'm not a Luddite, and I'm not sentimental, but it used to be that people were much more realistic in evaluation of their needs. It is only post-WWII that the expectation became that everyone needed their own suburban paradise, complete with every cleaning tool known to man. Then every family needed their own lawn equipment to care for their lawn. Every wife needed a vacuum to clean her new carpet. Then a washing machine to ease the load of clothes cleaning. Then more clothes became necessary, often made of sub-par materials. Households became more expensive, families became more estranged.
We have put so much emphasis on the importance of individuals, catering to their every need. A step-back and analysis of our actual basic needs is long overdue. Don't let the competition with the neighbors, advertisements or the latest gadget pull you into the lie of personalized necessity.
