For Black Friday: Why You Need To Learn To Receive NOW
Published: Thu, 11/17/11
This article became a pre-Thanksgiving tradition in 2008,
the
year we started seeing real mayhem in the big box stores.
See the end
for the 2011 update. You need to learn how to
receive...NOW.
*** ***
I'm writing this on Sunday morning, a couple of
days after a few tragic incidents on "Black Friday."
For those of you not in the United States, this
is the day after the
American Thanksgiving holiday
when many stores offer sales with deeply
discounted items.
These sales have become a phenomenon over the past
few years, with
stores opening at 5:00 am and people lining
up the night before to buy a
very limited quantity of
deeply discounted items.
In New York a Walmart employee was trampled to
death by the oncoming
crowd as the doors opened.
And in California a customer shot and killed
two people in an apparent rage about some item
that was in high demand.
Many people are prepared to take these two incidents
and use them as a symbol of everything that is going
wrong in the world.
I'd like to offer a completely different perspective:
I think this is
a time to recognize just how essentially
right things really are.
*** ***
These are sad events, but not unprecedented.
As I was telling a
friend of mine, I can imagine an
out of control crowd rushing to get
scarce loaves
of bread, or medicine, or any number of things that
were
once considered necessities for survival.
So the fact that the rush was on for electronics
or toys, things that
are nice but not necessary
is a sign of increased prosperity.
Indeed, this was a case of manufactured scarcity.
Collectively, we decide to assign importance to
certain items that
really has nothing to do with
our actual survival.
We will continue to
breathe in and out whether
we have that new computer or not.
Our children will love us whether they
get the hot new toy or not.
A deliberate condition of scarcity was engineered
and created by the
stores themselves, to entice
people to come in and act out of fear.
The
media bought into it, with stories about the
Black Friday sales and
people lining up days before.
I remember attending one of these a couple of years
ago. We were at a
Best Buy store in Connecticut at
5:00 am, thinking we'd be among the
first to be there.
We were greeted by multiple police cars, dogs,
television news trucks, and thousands of customers
who arrived before we
did.
That was the end of our Black Friday
shopping excursions. Never again.
As I said, the retailers and media co-created the
conditions that
contributed to these deaths -
along with us.
Those who lined up outside
the doors participated
in the frenzy. We have choices in how we think,
how we act and what we allow into our consciousness.
So with that, let me leave you with a few pieces
of good news....
1. I predict a change in the way these sales are
administered, and
they may even disappear altogether.
The retailers and the media don't
just create public
opinion. They respond to it as well.
Wal-mart is no
doubt reeling from bad publicity
surrounding this event. Black Friday
sales are
now associated with corporate and consumer
greed. No business
wants that connection.
2. For every act of chaos, greed and desperation
that occurred on
Black Friday, there were hundreds,
even thousands of acts of civility,
kindness and
generosity. These weren't reported in the media.
Doors were held open for senior citizens and children.
Children's eyes lit up when parents bought special
presents for them,
and parents hearts melted with
the reactions of their kids.
Strangers bonded in a shared sense of humor of
the absurdity of the circumstances they were in.
Spouses had hot breakfasts waiting for their partners
when they returned home.
Some minimum wage retail workers found a sense of
dignity and
personal empowerment in being assertive
towards large groups of people.
Some of these same workers received more
money than usual based on the
volume of sales
they processed.
And some of these workers experienced something
unpleasant enough, it
inspired them to ask for more
out of their lives.
Somewhere on Friday a
decision was made by a
Wal-mart or Radio Shack worker to go back to
college.
It really is a matter of where you choose to put
your focus.
Three lives taken and an attitude of greed.
Or a self-correcting marketplace and many
acts of compassion and grace.
I know where I'm choosing to focus!
Your Friend,
Larry
***
It's 2011, and most people don't know it
(or don't want to face
it) but we're coming
up on a whole new economic order.
Unsustainable
debt and a move away
from the US dollar as the reserve currency
is going
to change the way we live
virtually overnight.
This is a time to learn stuff about economics,
and there are plenty of good sources.
More than anything else, it's a time to become
self-reliant...to
learn how to draw resources
to yourself and receive them with an open
mind,
HOW TO RECEIVE is enrolling new students
for the January session.
If you think you're going to ride out the coming
economic tidal wave and just "get-by,"
you're begging to be a victim.
Because your value to the marketplace -
as an employee - is going to drop like a stone.
The value you create by living that dynamic
balance of giving and
receiving is going to be
the thing that not only gets you through tough
times...
But brings you to a whole new level of spiritual,
emotional and
(yes) financial fulfillment.
The old ways don't work anymore,
even if you don't know it.
Go to all the door busters you want.
Then saddle up.
Either learn to receive or get eaten by the system.