Consciousness Known by Rhonda O'Brien

You cannot solve a problem with the same consciousness that created it.

So I returned from my annual 6 am Black Friday shopping venture feeling really rotten. In retrospect I have a few observations to share.

I think that the notion that Americans have to spend money in order to “save” our economy is part of the problem.

We are suffering, financially, because people, countries, banks, companies cannot pay back money that they have borrowed.

I have a feeling that a lot of the people making purchases on “Black Friday” or any given day are buying on credit. I have to tell you that that doesn’t make me more comfortable about our future as my money sometimes pays for bailing out individuals who cannot pay back their debt.

How about stay at home and bake cookies with your kids, draw, paint, laugh, play Scrabble, tell someone you love them, be present, call a long lost friend, write a note and paste it on your children’s bathroom mirror. Love is not things. If you think that someone will not think that you love them if you don’t get them an “Easy Bake Oven” you are wrong.

What I remember the most about my parents is the one on one time that they gave me. I don’t really even remember the toys, gifts and/or the money. I remember my mom drawing me stick figures, my dad playing sports with me endlessly, my dad watching me at my swim team practice at 6 am, my grandma making a ribbon box with me, etc.

Spend some quality time with the ones that you love instead of plunging deeper into debt. Spending quality time with your loved ones is a louder expression of love than any material item that you can find on the store shelves this winter season or any season.