Claudia Lievano- Week 6

“We are ‘addicted to growth’ because the belief that we can grow indefinitely allows us to postpone grappling with the challenge of fairly meeting everyone’s needs today.” Sustainability (Thiele 149)

We are obsessed with what will happen next rather than assessing what is needed in the now. We live in a society that is based upon consumerism, where we always want more and can never be satisfied with what we already have. Publicity has created the belief that we must never attain self-fulfillment until we buy the latest technological device or have eaten at the most fancy restaurant. We turn our backs to the immediacy of the problem, which is meeting the first level in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: the physiological ones. The desire to grow and want more leaves us unhappy. Ignorance is bliss because people with less know no more than what they have available to them. We need to stop being selfish and address the current challenges others face to meet their survival needs.