A sad metaphor: Black Friday at Walmart

I'm not a big fan of Walmart. Sure, when Sam Walton was alive and in charge some good may have been happening but now it is just aggravating to shop there and as a company they have little to no social conscious*. The sad metaphor I am referring to, an employee getting trampled to death on Black Friday, isn't just about Walmart it relates to our country as a whole. ...

In a time when our staunch belief in capitalism as the savior of our society has proved wrong we are still sacrificing people to its altar. This time it was literal. We need to take some responsibility on a societal level. Our consumerism has way more negative aspects than positive and yet we keep going back. I like stuff as much as the next person, but it is literally killing our society to act as though we need it.

Perhaps we could start on the journey towards creation rather than consumption. What can we create? Perhaps we can stop measuring economic stability by how much the haves have and instead measure by how few have nots we have. One great zen saying my wife reminded me of this morning was, "The light that shines on my neighbor also shines on me." Perhaps we can adopt a philosophy around this to pick ourselves up from the ashes. Let's take some of that hope and turn it into reality.

Crisis equals opportunity and a crisis is upon us.

^{* I'm positive that many walmart employees are very socially conscious, they just work for a place that either doesn't let them show it or uses their excitement while taking the credit.}