Lab rats?

That's it. I'm sick of it. I've had enough. It's time for us all to opt out of the rat race. To get off the hamster wheel of consumerism.

Yesterday, I ran into Rite-Aid on my lunch break to pick up a box of Dayquil. As I was walking out of the store, I noticed they already had an entire aisle set up for Valentine's Day. Are you kidding me? It's bad enough they start setting up for Christmas before Halloween (that alone Thanksgiving), now they have to start this crap?

When are we going to wake up? When are we going to realize we're all being strung along from holiday to holiday by our pride, fear and greed? Do we really have no way of expressing our love and appreciation for one another except for buying more and more stuff?

As an interesting backdrop to my Rite-Aid experience, I was talking to a co-worker yesterday and he told me that for Christmas, instead of buying each other gifts his family all makes a donation to a charity. On Christmas, they spread all the envelopes out on the floor and everyone picks one to see which charity received a donation in their honor. I was deeply impressed by this.

While I appreciate the gifts I have received (as evidenced by my last post) and have enjoyed giving them as well, next year just make a donation to one of the fine charitable causes you see listed on my blog. We'll all be better for it.

"I've seen enough and it's never enough, it keeps leaving me needing you." - Lifehouse