So, apparently one of the London rioters has a day job as a teaching assistant in a primary school. He was arrested on the premises of an electrical goods store, although he had yet to take anything from it.

There have been many comments on the rioters and their motivations, including the suggestion that the rioters feel entitled to take by force what they should instead expect to obtain only by their own hard work and industry. Considering that he holds down a responsible full time job, I presume the man in question is capable of hard work and industry. His reward for this is £1,000 a month.

I would seriously question the notion that everyone in society can have all that they want if they just work hard enough for it. This is for two reasons.

Firstly, many people in society work as public servants. We need them to, for they work as doctors, nurses, teachers, policemen and civil servants. Yet their wages are not directly in line with their individual efforts, and many are facing pay freezes or job cuts in the next few years. Put simply, no matter how hard you work as a teacher or nurse in the next year, you probably aren’t going to see any more money.

Secondly, it seems to me that our expectations for our lives are raging out of control. As a society, we convey a simple message to each other through the media – unless you are exceptionally wealthy, materially successful or beautiful, you are inferior and irrelevant.

The Apprentice, the X-Factor, Britain’s Got Talent – all these shows and more convey the message that life consists of one winner and many losers. For a long time now, advertising has been designed to directly appeal to your sense of self. You no longer buy things for what they do, you buy them for what they say about you. After all, if you don’t have an iPhone, you don’t have an iPhone. The ‘loser‘ on the end of that sentence is silent.

In Dragon’s Den, we literally have a show in which aspiring hopefuls beseech the rich and powerful for their money. I personally would like to see a version of the show entitled Nanna’s Den in which five of Britain’s most kind, humorous and nurturing grandmothers give out advice and cake to young people trying to solve problems in their relationships and families. Wouldn’t it just be nice to promote some values other than wealth, youth and power?

You see, the danger of this message  is that it hurts people. It isn’t nice to get the message that you’re a loser – whether from Apple or anyone else. It hurts, and when you’re hurt, you’re angry. When you’re angry, you want to fight back – just like the Prime Minister is advising. You realise you can’t afford this thing you’ve been told will make you a complete human being, and that you have neither the education, the opportunities or the skills to get it anytime soon. So rather than suffer because you don’t have an iPhone, it starts to make sense to you to go and steal one.

Does this excuse anyone’s actions? No it doesn’t. But he who rattles a stick along a fence to annoy the dog next door should not be surprised when one day the dog gets free and bites him. Likewise, if you allow the media to constantly raise everyone’s material expectations to unrealistic levels, and to then imply that anyone who doesn’t achieve those levels is a loser, you can’t expect a positive result. Marketing doesn’t cause looting, but the kind of marketing which carries a message of personal inadequacy is a very corrosive force.

Of course, I’m not saying anything that hasn’t been said before.

So what practical action can you take? How can you avoid being sucked into raised expectations?

Why not turn off your TV and try one of the following things?

1. Go to sleep. Really. You’re only lying in front of the TV because you’re too exhausted to do anything else, so why not relax completely rather than letting the body unwind while the mind is highly stimulated by sex and violence?
2. Learn to meditate. The fact that you think its boring is the precise reason it will help you. It is the anti-television, and it will make you happier and more content with yourself and your life.
3. Spend time with a real person, and if you don’t have one, go and look for one. Think of the least threatening person you know and go and ask them how their day has been.
4. Go outside, and if you can, walk around a bit. Honestly, you’ll feel better. You might even see a real person you can talk to.
5. Make something with your hands. If you can’t think of anything else, bake a loaf of bread. It will make the best toast you will ever eat.
6. Read a book made of paper. Anything will do.
7. Think about learning something new. Lots of resources exist to help you. The more you know, the more you have to offer and the more you can be given in exchange without needing to break into a shop and steal it. But you don’t have to learn something with commercial value – anything that you enjoy learning is good.