Personal Development for Smart People Forums - View Single Post - A conscious approach to an engagement ring

dominick · 10-18-2008, 08:07 PM

Thanks for all the advice everyone!

We actually have talked about it a fair amount. She understands the issues that I have and agrees with them. At the same time she's also a pretty traditional woman (she's from the South, what can I say?) for whom the idea of being proposed to with a diamond ring is something that she's looked forward to since being a little girl.

I'm sure we could go off on a long thread here about the social conditioning involved with that and the billions that the diamond industry has spent over the years to convince us that we need to buy their products, etc. I get all that so am basically trying to figure out what's most important here. On one hand, I want to make the girl I love as happy as possible. On the other hand, I don't want to anything that conflicts with my core values and certainly don't want her wearing something for the rest of her life that carries the energy of exploitation.

There are an increasing array of "socially conscious" options here and I'm thankful for that. And by consuming consciously I help to keep those options alive and growing. But I still think I'm conflicted by the whole notion of what an engagement ring is and what it means and want to separate out what's real (my love for and commitment to her) from what's false (consumerism/materialism, social conditioning, etc).

10-18-2008, 08:07 PM	#10 (permalink)
dominick Member Join Date: Sep 2008 Posts: 69	Thanks for all the advice everyone! We actually have talked about it a fair amount. She understands the issues that I have and agrees with them. At the same time she's also a pretty traditional woman (she's from the South, what can I say?) for whom the idea of being proposed to with a diamond ring is something that she's looked forward to since being a little girl. I'm sure we could go off on a long thread here about the social conditioning involved with that and the billions that the diamond industry has spent over the years to convince us that we need to buy their products, etc. I get all that so am basically trying to figure out what's most important here. On one hand, I want to make the girl I love as happy as possible. On the other hand, I don't want to anything that conflicts with my core values and certainly don't want her wearing something for the rest of her life that carries the energy of exploitation. There are an increasing array of "socially conscious" options here and I'm thankful for that. And by consuming consciously I help to keep those options alive and growing. But I still think I'm conflicted by the whole notion of what an engagement ring is and what it means and want to separate out what's real (my love for and commitment to her) from what's false (consumerism/materialism, social conditioning, etc).