The Makings of a Man

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I know I did. Class, I’ve come to a realization of things. There are times in which enlightenment will hit you in the most random of times. So without further a due, I’ll bring your lesson for today (or at least I’ll try, still high off of turkey [ Tryptophan] here).

Here in the United States, today is a special day: Black Friday. Black Friday is an unofficial holiday, celebrated on the day after Thanksgiving that marks the beginning of the Christmas holiday season. As many of you have heard on the news or online, many retailers open early (often 4am or even earlier) and offer promotional sales to kick-off the shopping season. Virtually every mall, outlet, retail store, etc is witnessing disruptive pedestrian and vehicle traffic in hopes of catching a bargain.

Now these bargains are great to an extent, however, the one issue I have with the Black Friday madness is that retailers only have a few big-draw items available for sale on the day after Turkey Day. So essentially, the promotions hype a shopper up, get their adrenaline going, only to have a crash feeling like how a Red Bull would hours after consumption. Injuries and deaths have also occurred in these human stampedes. All this over a few retail promotional deals. So being the “philosopher of life” that I am, I began to wonder how would things be if we applied the same energy and logic that we use on Black Friday in our personal relationships.

Now granted, I totally understand that Black Friday is about shopping. But hear me out; if we applied the same attention and energy for shopping, that we do in our relationships, we would be happier. For example, prior to Black Friday, you are working on your roadmap of retail stores you will go to. If it is a mall, you are probably drawing your plan of attack either in your head or on paper. When was the last time you have written anything to or about your significant other? When was the last time you have communicated with him/her? I’m not talking about a “what are we eating” or an “I’m just trying to get some sex” conversation. I mean a real, intimate, genuinely honest conversation. Face to face, no texting, BBM’ing or other forms of electronic communication. These advances of technology that help us “communicate” can also hurt the quality of that communication, especially in romantic relationships (I’ll have to discuss communication in another post).

But it strikes me as odd that a couple can stand in line for hours in hopes of getting a new 60” TV for under $2,000, but they can’t even talk about their love for one another for free-ninety-nine. There’s obviously something wrong if a female wants you to spend $129 or more on a new digital camera if she can’t pick up the phone to call and have a simple conversation with you. We live in a materialistic world. A world in which money and material possessions outweigh interpersonal relationships and no-holds barred communication.

I’m not here to judge your actions, but help improve your reactions. So while you are standing in those lines, or even shopping online….I want you to ask yourself: does your relationship have insufficient funds? Just like at your job, you have to work to receive your reward (paycheck), but have you really worked on your relationship lately? Or are you just going through the motions, waiting aimlessly for something (good or bad) to happen? For those in relationships, try to put the same effort you put in shopping into upgrading your relationship…after all, the return lines are longer the day after Christmas than the lines to purchase the products on Black Friday. In other words, the work you put into your relationships now will benefit you in the future, but it is up to you to control what happens in your relationship. Is your relationship like the true meaning of Christmas, or a glorified commercialized item that will be junk in less than two months?

Happy holidays and feel free to comment.

---Class Dismissed