Is It Hypocritical?

One of my top values as a person and as a business is to support my local community. One of the most influential reasons for this value is that my parents own a small business and raised me and my family from it. They have built an amazing business, employee and customer community, and make a profound impact in their area.

And yet, here I am selling my art online and asking a global community to buy my art. How do these two facts blend.

I have thought about this supposed hypocrisy for years and here is what I think about it.

It’s not hypocritical.

Let’s start with what I know.

1. We should support our local communities.

2. We should support people/companies that align with our values.

3. We should support companies we love who offer us things we want.

Now, what if those three criteria can’t be met in a company?

This is the process I go through when choosing what stores to buy from.

First, I look in my local community. If someone has what I want and it’s a company I want to support because of their values and methods then, perfect! I look no further.

Second, if what I want is there, but not from a business I want to support, then I look further away. I look in the rest of my province and closest provinces or the rest of Canada. If I still can’t find anything in Canada then I look internationally.

Some people might say that you need to support local no matter what. Well, I come from a small city. Sadly, often in small cities or towns there are actually no options. The big box stores have forced a lot of the local businesses out. Or you could be in a community that’s small enough to not have anything at all. So, the term “local community” can be a bit of a grey area since there isn’t a business community to support in the first place.

My other consideration is that I believe it is important to support people and companies who are doing a good and ethical job, who treat their employees better than fairly. Unfortunately, sometimes the options available to us do not meet these standards. Supporting them and reinforcing their actions does not ultimately help your community.

Today, we have the incredible ability to see what other people and businesses are doing across the world. We should see the success of other people doing good work and let that inspire us to do the same in our environments, knowing that it is possible to succeed.

As a creative, it can sometimes be necessary to look around the world not just for encouragement but also for your clientele. As I mentioned earlier, if you were in a small town, chances are it would not be able to support you and your creative dreams. In order to accomplish your goals you need to look beyond your community. People need the ability to act on their crazy ideas and grand desires for their life. And I think if the internet has taught us one thing its that there are people out there who will LOVE to help you reach them.

The flip side of this is that you may not be able to find what you are looking for in your local environment for various reasons. Its offerings, the culture and popular taste, may have created businesses that don’t have what your want.

I have very particular taste in many different areas. For example, years ago I was looking for a cross-body purse. I went to all the stores and could not find one I liked in my area. I searched online. Finally, I found one from a US company that I loved. It aligned with my values of being hand-made, used quality material, and its employees success was at the core of its business values.

I still own that purse, it is still one of my favourite items I own, it’s still in great shape, and it helps me feel my best because it feels true to who I am, not just on the aesthetics but because of the shared values that went into it as well.

So, there you have it. Yes, we should support local. But beyond that, we need to support people who are doing good work we believe in.

I hope this clarified some of my thoughts and opinions for you. Or at the very least inspired you to take a look at your purchasing decisions and see if they actually align with your values. Of course, we can’t always be perfect in our purchases. But even just a little more spent locally, or a little more spent at good companies makes a huge difference.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter. You can chat with me down in the comments bellow if you want!

Hope you have a great rest of your day or evening:)

Cait