Black Friday offers crowds, noise, traffic, virus and germs, and an emptier wallet.
The number one reason to avoid Black Friday is that it is a fraud. What is meant by that is; all the ads will play upon your emotions of making a good impression with your holiday gifts and thoughtfulness. But gifts of solely bought things, are not the secret to happiness, anymore than Thanksgiving is a day for turkeys to celebrate gratitude.
Like all public holidays, we want to participate in Black Friday sales because everyone is doing it. It’s a cultural “togetherness” something like the spirit of rooting for the home team. But retailers, and others selling things, are in business for profits. It is as simple as that. They want you to feel smart for saving money, thoughtful for shopping for gifts, savvy at winning bargains, kind, and generous, even better looking, but in the end, the holidays should most be about connecting with those you love. Other good reasons to avoid Black Friday include preserving sanity, avoiding crowds and traffic, and just being a better person. You can be a better person by avoiding the consumption insanity altogether.
How can one be a better person by avoiding the biggest shopping day of the year? How will you survive without those missed values, and saved dollars? First of all, avoiding crowds, traffic, their hazards, and germs, and virus, is just plain smart. There are more than five reasons, but to name just five, avoid crowds, greed, traffic, false promises, and waste of resources. Your values should be something that truly makes you feel good about yourself. Knowing that the world is dying of “consumption” is to understand what almost everyone knows, (you cannot buy your way to a better world) but few act upon. People figure, ” well if everyone is driving the production and distribution of all this junk, I should trust their judgment.” There is no reason to trust the judgment of the crowd, and every reason to think for yourself and listen to the voice of the earth.
The voice of the earth is being drowned out with pollution, and contamination in our air, water, soil, and degradation to every known habitat where biodiversity once thrived. It is the consumption of goods that is completely behind global warming and climate change, whether you believe they are true or not. Corporations really do put profits before quality of life. Corporations really did eliminate early 20th century public transportation, sell bigger cars for bigger profits, despite more toxic emissions, and corporations really do pass the costs of pollution onto you, the public, and take the profits but not the cost of externalities, the lost quality of air, water, food, and biodiversity. The clean up costs and the toxins in all those cheap goods is given to you, and the world of nature.
Being close to you family and taking time to go visit and appreciate the natural world is the very best thing you can do on Black Friday. Do not believe what you read, however, just take a short stroll and see, feel, smell, taste, and hear it for yourself. Trust your senses. Let your senses come to life, and let the people you love experience this with you. This has to be, by far, the best bargain to be found on Black Friday, a belonging to the world and its beauty. Everything is connected. Everything is dependent upon everything else, and no toxins and concentrated wastes are found in nature. Open up your eyes. A sense of real life and real hope can be found in nature, it’s not too late.