day by day

When my sister and I were very young, my Aunt Meercy, would take us to the museum in Pittsburgh. The Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh back in the day was a combo history museum with dinosaurs and artifacts from the early days of Pennsylvania as well as a location for fine and contemporary art. Our first journeys to the museum were more like work then pleasure as Aunt Meercy insisted that we actually stop at each exhibit, study it and discuss what we just viewed. Aunt Meercy insisted that we should never ignore the moment, but enjoy the opportunity as it happened. Aunt Meercy urged my sister and I to participate in the here and now. She would add, dreams can only exist from reality. We can never find the future unless we understand why we are in the present. She would also add, the next thing can be exciting, but if you have nothing to compare it to just how exciting can it be? My little sister were too young to understand her philosophy on the here and now, but my Aunt’s actions were learning tools for the two of us to begin the process of appreciating the moment and the importance of being. The here and now, the enjoyment of the moment lessons in life that still resonate with richness and rewards.

Here it is Black Friday, which started on Thanksgiving Thursday for some at 8 pm for some at 9 pm for others at midnight. We were cautioned to warm up, get ready, eat quickly , forget the family get out stand in line and buy baby buy! The moment of celebrating the Thanksgiving Holiday, was not as important as anticipating the Christmas season and of course leaving your family and their holiday traditions behind and buy baby buy. Wal-Mart, Target, K-Mart, Toys-R-Us employees work comes before family gatherings. Crazed Americans eager to celebrate the Christmas season, not in the celebration of the birth of Christ but in the worship of materialism, let your family share the Thanksgiving meal without you. Look forward, straight ahead, don’t delay, Thanksgiving is just a roadblock an irritant for the Christmas season. But don’t be so comfortable with Christmas Day either, cause the sales on December 26 will blow your minds. Who knows but the sales may start at 8pm/9pm on the eve of Christmas Day.

When did we stop to take the time to appreciate the moment, the meaning of the holiday? When did our memories become less important then the shopping, the time away, the urgency to buy baby buy?

I don’t get it, just don’t understand it, why can’t we, like Aunt Meercy told us to do, stop look at life in front of us and grasp its meaning? Why is the next thing the best thing and the current thing just not important enough to recognize or respect?  Life lived one day at a time seems to be a life appreciated, seems to me many of us just don’t care! Happy Black Friday.