Out with the Hippies, in with the Yawns, and why did you change?

According to CNN living lightly...even if you have the means to do otherwise is a growing phenomenon. Seems almost fitting that its popular emergence is amoung the well to due. I suppose once you realize you can buy almost anything, there is a good chance you realize that buying everything won't make you any happier. I would hardly put myself anywhere near the income bracket of some of the referenced examples, but I can say that my wife and I earn a comfortable amount of income, and I do feel a certain kinship with the people in the article, even though the difference between potential and actual consumption is less pronounced in my case. I imagine that the individuals in the article climbed up to the top of the consumption mountain and said: geeze, I'm no happier than I was at the bottom. I am guessing, but its probably harder for someone halfway up the hill, still intent on reaching the top, to understand the rule of diminishing returns as it applies to materialism.

And then there is the other argument I'm heard that living ethically is expensive. All the green goods and carbon offsets and local foods are more expensive than piling everyone in the car and going to burger king. And who the heck has the time to cook if you're working two jobs to pay off the debts. Its easier to plop the kids in front of the tv and buy them whatever is being pimped this week than to spend time with them after a stressful day. Being an "instant" father I recently have begun to see the seduction of the things I so cheerfully criticized prior.

So what motivates someone like well me and you to stop trying to claw our way up the hill of consumerism. What motivated me? Well read back to my first post, but I'll tell you up front I was not happy. A quarter life crisis so to speak, coupled with an obsessive tendency to dig deeper into the things that caused my anxiety. Eventually I reached a point where one way or another I was not going to keep ending up panicing, and by extention surrendering to defeat.

But life "outside the box" is alien to most, its lonely at times, and often requires the living to separate from the ways of the dead. Not an appealing proposition.

So why did you leave your box?