Say NO to Early Thanksgiving Store Openings

The one thing I grew up with was a joy of the holiday season.  Even with the stress that comes with the holidays, it is still one moment of the year that I look forward to with anticipation.  I'm appalled at how the major retailers have put profits over people.  I think we should all say NO to early Thanksgiving store openings.

Yes, I realize that the stores see Black Friday as a way to make a profit and I realize that there is a lot of money made on this day.  However, is it not possible to value your employees enough so that they can spend time with their families?  I'm sure all of you retailers promote how much you are a family and how much you care about family values!  If you do, then why are profits more important?

We live in a world that we value people very little, but if we can stuff another dollar in our pockets at their expense, we don't seem to see a problem with this.  If we don't watch out, we will destroy the bedrock that business and corporations have been built upon.

Spending Millions To Buy Elections

The 2014 elections are over.  The ballots have been cast.  Winners have been named.  Even though I'm writing this well in advance, I can predict that some people will claim this is a victory for their side and others will claim that it is a travesty.

Unfortunately in our country, we have bastardized elections to be nothing more than a political grab by one group over another.  We donate money at astonishing rates to claim victory.  In the end, it doesn't really matter that we do anything here to advance society, as long as our side wins.

Oh, we claim we are in this to make changes and to take back our country.  We claim we have the right ideas and that we will get the country headed in the right direction.  We claim that we know what the country needs.

Greed Is Good

Day after day, I see news stories that show how American greed is running a race to see what corporations can out-greed one another.  Sure, I know the shareholders think this is good as does the CEO's that are lining their pockets.  Just like Gordon Gekko in Wall Street who declared greed is good, we're in an age that would make Gordon Gekko look like he knew very little on the subject.

Just today I saw that Darden which owns several companies including Olive Garden basically ousted the current board of directors in the company.  The current board of directors wasn't making enough money for the shareholders and so they said, enough is enough.  Beyond the "only two bread-sticks" per customer rule, I wonder if they will start charging for everything and anything.  I mean, I know its their business and all, but you can just see how greed is good in the minds of these business people.

Greed Makes The World Go

Doesn't anyone care?  Doesn't our world understand?  Or is it just become such an accepted fact that greed makes the world go?  I struggle to understand how we can sit by as a collective community in the world and be a part of this.

Do you have to put on a sack cloth and ashes in order to not be part of the greed problem?  Absolutely not!  I think there are people who have figured out life and have more to financially give then others.  There are people who have been given talents and skills and gifts to use in order to help others.  There are people who have been given bigger hearts to share and spread love throughout the world.

Unfortunately it is just too common to see greed living life to the fullest and sucking up every warm blooded person in its wake.  The attitude from the greedy, "I'm not sharing and what is mine is mine," is one that will doom our society and our world.  You can see this in various countries and parts of the world already and I believe you can see it in our own country.

Is Humanity Lost?

Some days I really wonder about the human species.  I wonder if the animals truly are the more advanced life forms on this planet.  Heck, for that matter maybe the plants are more advanced than humans.  Everywhere you look though, humanity is either asleep or just down right as hateful and evil and greedy as they can get.

So is humanity lost?  Let's explore a few of the faces of humanity that seem to be getting all the attention these days and see if it is truly lost.

Humanity is not greed.  It seems that everything these days is done out of right-out-greed.  The dollar controls every action in corporations and the news media.  Politics is no longer about the best ideas, it is about who has the money to control it.  Okay, maybe its always been that way to some degree, but in the past few years, it feels like greed is taking way too many steroids or drinking way too much caffeine.

Humanity involves creativity.  Creativity is asleep at the wheel.  What is created these days seems to be flat.  It is a rerun of the same things that are done over and over until we're so exhausted by them, we no longer know what creativity is all about.  Songs are nothing more than electronically synthesized music that makes the sensitive souls cringe as if someone was scrapping their fingers on a chalk board.  Music that is turned out these days has no soul.  It lost its soul.  Entertainment and movies has to be "greater" and "more action oriented" and "more extreme" to get anyone's attention.

What We Do To The Least

What We Do To The Least
Bird at Blue Springs Park

I was watching the movie "I Am" last night on OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network) that I had recorded from Oprah's Super Soul Sunday a couple of weeks ago.  The first time I saw this movie was in a small coffee shop in Daytona Beach, Florida several months ago.  It is a must see movie especially if you ask the question, what is wrong with this world?

Tom Shadyack created this movie and if you recall, he is the producer behind movies such as "Bruce Almighty", "Liar Liar" and "Ace Ventura, Pet Detective"
. 

There was one section in the movie that just hit home to me.  In the movie he talks about the hunter that is so good at hunting that before long, the hunter gets irritated with how much he does for society.

Thanksgiving - The Time To Shop For Christmas

Thanksgiving - Time To Shop
For Christmas

We once again commemorate this long awaited for day in our country, Thanksgiving Day Holiday.  We've waited all year long to buy those much needed Christmas presents.  After all, its those great deals that help us buy the gifts for others and ourselves that we truly need.

We convince ourselves that there is just no time like this weekend to buy everything our heart desires.  Spending money we don't have, it all goes on the credit cards to pay off over the next year.  Nothing would stop us from doing this because it is just too practical to not go out and buy things at discounted prices.  The lure of the stores, the sounds of Christmas music and the fever of people lining up to get everything they can is too intoxicating for us.

We do recognize that this marks the season of the birthday of Jesus and we vow to keep Christ in Christmas, but please don't get in our way when the doors open at the stores on black friday.  You most likely will be trampled, or have toys and items yanked from your hands.  After all, to get the best deals, this is all worth it!   Trampling people and fighting for deals is all part of the game.  It is being human.  It is survival of the fittest!