“Everyone wants to produce.” – My father-in-law

You don’t have to search very long before you’ll find someone ready to criticize our consumer culture. Black Friday, buffet lines, and night clubs are just a few examples off the top of my head of how much we want to consume for ourselves. But do we really think that stores are going to run out of merchandise? Are we seriously concerned with a buffet running out of food or of night club performers getting tired of the provocative nature of their jobs? Why is it that we naturally want to consume so much?

The issue definitely isn’t a scarcity kind of thing. In the South, people purchase land because they know that, with government controls, more is being seized than is being released – and no more is being created. That’s something different. Where we are right now as a culture is an obsession to consume all we can. Think about twitter usage.

Most people follow way more than follow them – I’m the same way. But think about your twitter timeline. Depending on your social media activity and how long you’ve been on twitter, you have your tweet number. But have you ever considered how many tweets you’ve “consumed” as compared to how many you’ve produced? That number is probably staggering.

“Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value.” – Atlas Shrugged

This world is driven by producers. I am concerned that, without the continual drive to excel and produce more than we consume, the scarcity of production will continue to grow. The challenge to us is to create regularly. Add value to people. Maybe that means tweeting more and consuming less. Maybe that means starting a blog. Maybe that means paying it forward to someone else – lending a helping hand or lending out a favorite book.

Whatever the creative outlet, produce something, anything, that gives other people the tools they need to be better.