We sit on the brink of a federal shutdown. Radiation is running rampant in Japan, the country being torn apart and devastated, lives lost, homes lost. There is massive violence and unrest in Libya, among others. Gas prices are soaring, while salaries are diminishing. We are fighting to save women's rights to health care through keeping funding to Planned Parenthood. But yet when I woke up in a panicked sweat this morning at 4am, it wasn't over any of these issues. I woke up in a panic that the black jeggings I just got on sale didn't fit me right and were too dark to even wear in the spring, and that none of my shoes will do, and if I want to be fashionable I must get some wedges.
Whoa. What? Really? This is what's panicking me? And I was up for a good hour stressing about this, as embarrassing as it is to admit. I mean, really stressing about it. Then it got me thinking. The majority of what I see around me within my peer groups is focused on just this: the latest fashions and fads of consumerism. They are not focused on the state or affairs of the world. Perhaps because it is too much to think about. Perhaps because we figure there's nothing we can do about it anyways. Perhaps because in our often self-centered society, we assume these things going on in different places won't affect us.
When the state of the world is emphasized in most of the media, it is to scare us. So the media puts out shock-value news, aiming to instill fear. This fear triggers in us a fatalistic feeling that there's no point, life is short, chaotic, and completely unfair and random. Then come in the ads and entertainment news media with all the new fashions, the new designers, who's wearing what, what's trendy for the spring. BOOM. Gotcha: "Life sucks, the world is coming to an end, so why not spend the money you may not even have on all of these consumer goods so that you will at least look good and have all the trendy things while the world around you is crumbling down."
It almost seems to me like we are given two options: either fall into fatalistic fear about the world, or obsess about having material things. (I wrote another article mainly on this -- about how the media plays into our need to feel that the only way we are successful or seem successful is to have things; that the only way that we can feel good about ourselves is to have things that media and celebrities tell us we should want). Or we can bounce between these two options and let them play against each other, like I mentioned in the previous paragraph.
But what about a middle ground, what about balance? It looks like the responsibility falls on each individual person to create this for ourselves. The media doesn't do much in helping us cope with what's going on, or in instilling the belief in us that there is anything we can do about it. We are apathetic. We feel hopeless to change anything, feel like there's nothing we can do, so we just accept the way the world is and then ignore it, suppress it by trying to fill the void with "stuff." It's easier to ignore it than deal with it when you feel like: a) it doesn't affect you, and b) there's nothing you can do about it anyways.
There is always something we can do. First of all, we can educate ourselves... But educate ourselves for real by finding a website or news outlet that we can relate to and we can trust. Secondly, we take a moment to figure out how we CAN make a difference. Maybe take that $50 you were going to spend on a new shirt or shoes and donate it to a charity working towards an issue that you believe in. Maybe take those two hours you were going to spend window shopping on Robertson or at The Beverly Center and volunteer for a cause you believe in. Maybe spend that half hour you were going to use to gossip with your friends about how other people are living their lives to talk about how you feel about what's going on in the world or in our country, and brainstorm your thoughts on it with each other. Awareness is key. Being aware of what's going on in our world without giving into the fear, and being aware that even the tiniest thing you do CAN make a difference, is the key to moving through this uncertain time in the world with as much self-peace and ease as possible. Once we've done all these things, then we can see if we have any worry left over to focus on whether or not our wardrobe is fashionable enough for the spring.
Follow Holly Sidell on Twitter: www.twitter.com/HolisticHolly
http://www.myrandomvideo.com/potassium-iodine/
ps. hope fashion brings back the clip on ties.
http://www.myrandomvideo.com/its-a-clip-on-buddy/