How big is your tribe?
Does it follow the main pack of civilization and society?
I have come to realize that my tribe is in a bit of a minority…
There are facts to support this too!
We don’t buy a new car every five years, if ever.
We all try to ride bikes or walk places.
We don’t tend to buy a lot of consumer goods.
A trip to Costco is pretty rare, and will inadvertently be for the poutine only.
We are even politically active about all of the above!
Unfortunately, we are the few. A small percentage. StatsCan has all sorts of data to back this up. Just check out this report on consumer spending habits. The average Canadian household, in 2009, spent $2,841 on clothing and $9,753 on transportation. I don’t think I spend that much in clothing in 10 years! I also don’t own a personal vehicle, and the company truck I have access too only gets about 5,000 personal km’s a year put on it.
Shockingly, the average Canadian household only spent $232 a year on “reading material and other printed matter” compared with $255 a year on games of chance! We also spent $1,506 per household on tobacco and alcohol, and $3,843 per household on recreation. My habits differ significantly from this: for reading material, I probably double the average. For recreation – I’m about half the average. For alcohol and tobacco…well I do like beer!
Worldwide spending shows interesting trends also. World Centric has some basic stats on their site that tell a scary story about how we vote with our wallets. $18 billion a year on make-up world wide. $17 billion on pet food in Europe and the USA. I don’t own pets…
I also vote for the Green party which aligns me with 4% of Canada and about 8.13% of British Columbia.
I ski – a sport enjoyed by only about 5% of the entire population of the world. Mountain biking, my other favourite pastime, is enjoyed by maybe 5% of the world also.
My tribe is small,thoughtful, fit, thrifty, politically engaged, worried about climate change and involved in the local community. I wish it could grow by 10 times! Imagine what the world would be like!