Where Do You Go?
Life often demands response from us. Be it the little things like paper or plastic; or the big things, like renting or owning a house. There’s always a question to be answered, a decision to make. Some, we make without second thought, others, we spend time and discussion on. Below we will discuss how to flip the script, and start asking the right questions about what makes up your everyday life, especially the small things often taken for granted.
Objects. Items. Things. Trinkets. Stuff. Odds are, you are likely looking at this website on a phone. Your phone likely has a case, and if it doesn’t (applaud your courage), imagine it does. Where did you buy that case? Was it in a store or online?
Store
When you bought it, did you think about how it got to the store? Someone had to buy it. Someone had to make it, someone had to ship it, and then someone at the store had to sell it. Minimum 4 people at some point put some time to it.
Online
When it arrived, did you notice how it got there? Someone had to put it on that website. Someone delivered it to your door from a warehouse or shop. Someone had to order it to that warehouse/store. Someone had to make it, someone had to ship it to the warehouse/store. Minimum 5 people at some point put some time to it.
This is usually the first question you can ask of any tangible or service. The question is of how something physically came before you. As you can see, there’s usually quite a lot of hands to exchange for both the physical aspect and digital goods. Not to mention the many invisble hands for approvals and paperwork where necessary. Whenever there is something before you, in order to be more conscious, you must first ask how did it get there. After that, you may ask somethings a bit deeper. For example, what was the phone made of case made of?
Plastic
There’s two primary components to plastics really. One gives it texture, one gives it color. The texture is usually derived from an oil based polymer. This means someone needed to extract the oil, refine it, develop the plastic material, then form it into the case shape, with someone shipping it between each step. The color can come from both natural and more chemical based pigments. This adds in another person to extract/formulate the color, refine it, add it to the plastic, and of course ship it between these stages. (People +12)
Wood/ Natural materials
A more rare option is the natural material cases. Typically there’s some plastic but lets ignore this for now. Someone had to source the material, process into something ship, form it to the size of the case, apply a finish, and of course ship it between steps.(People +7)
We have only asked two questions so far, and we are starting to see a much wider network of people involved in getting this seemingly basic item before you. Keep in mind, you are not talking about the tools these people needed to accomplish their part of the task, or what was needed in their lives to get them to the point to be able to perform their duties. Everyone has a distinct life path, and everything had to intertwine just right for that item to be before you. A quite literal pothole on the road for one workers pizza could have ruined dinner plans for the worker who was responsible for a machine to make the case. From there staying up late to makeup dinner caused being late and production delay. This could have ruined some sheet’s bottom line causing the product to be discontinued and never had made it to you. Hyperbole? Maybe, but replace a pothole with a truck full of materials spilling out in a crash and the narratives get more and more realistic as the ‘pothole’ gets bigger and bigger. So what’s the point? It takes a village, so what? Well ask more questions. When you purchased this thing how did you pay?
Cash
No notes, this one was between you and the cashier believing in the value of the currency you used. (People +0)
Credit/Debit
This is more involved. Here you used a card on a terminal or site, typically installed by a separate merchant/vendor, and run by a payment processor, further the exchange took place with your financial institution. This adds in more people (+4) even though they didn’t quite make the product directly appear before you.
Did you have to pay sales tax? This adds in one more person/group to the chain that didn’t quite directly lead to the product before you. We should now fully realize the scope of people involved in just this one object infront of you. You can run a similiar exercise on your clothes, furniture, food, etc. People involved in the physical good, those who helped those people achieve their part of the process, and those people and institutions who were part of the transaction. Now that you know just who is part of the chain of the product/service, you can see how your purchase of say $20 for example, gets split amongst all of these people and processes. That $20 reaches far and wide, far wider than you realize. It doesn’t end there either, think of where the case goes once it has seen its last days, how it will get there, and who will be involved in that process. Now you have complete understanding of where the case came from, and where it will go.
But what do I do next?
APPLY. You can likely figure where a product is made, they are often labeled in one spot or another. You may find from a simple search what an object is made of, and the industries, people, areas, and processes that support it. Familiarize yourself with this area, its people, its culture, its way of life. You are directly impacting these people, and directly supporting them. Make no mistake, whatever is happening or will happen around the web of people involved, you directly contributing to. So if for example, you find the people are being treated poorly, or leaders are waging war with profits, or if they reinvest to save a local shelter, you have helped achieve this. Your $20 owns everything every group does and contributes to, both good and bad. You need to be conscious of just how far and wide a scope your financial support achieves. With that level of consciousness, and simply a select choice of a $20 purchase, you have the power to both select and dictate impact of the lives of so so many. Apply this technique to as many things and as often as you can. Understand your power, and consciously wield it.
“Quote”
To live consciously, you must make effort. With this exercise you should have become aware of just how quickly your involvement can spread and widen with your financial decisions. You should also have figured how to properly identify some of the larger players, and seen how every transaction is an endorsement. This can all be overwhelming, but you don’t have to do it for every purchase you make, and every item you see. some work is even done for you. Start small, work your way up, and soon you will be much more conscious of where your money goes, and in turn, what the labor of your life supports.