Aaa, Sunday morning, people used to read newspaper over breakfast, or like Jack and I, bouncing interesting ideas off of each other over coffee. And now what do we do? Each of us having an iPad and separately dwelling deep into the cyber space. I really miss the good old days.
Jack spent an hour looking for a heavy duty tool to move big logs from one place to another for a land preservation project. It makes me think. With the rate the eCommerce grows, what's going to happen to the retail stores. Sadly, some of them will go out of business. And what's going to happen to the vacant spaces? Perhaps more new restaurants, or yoga studios.
Showing posts with label online shopping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label online shopping. Show all posts
Sunday, November 16, 2014
Friday, January 4, 2013
Consumption v.s. productiveness
In Jack's words, if you are not producing, you are consuming.
This is my life experience since I started working, and this life experience has been exaggerated the last 3 weeks. In fact, every year during the holiday season, this experience was exaggerated, and it constituted the dark side of me.
I don't believe in the modern economic measurement of double digit growth in businesses, because I think it is not sustainable, and it is irresponsible stewardship of the earth and future generations.
However, I hopelessly fell victim to American consumerism. During the Christmas and New Year holidays, I would spend hours shopping online for things I didn't really need, mostly clothing and accessories, just for the sake of finding good deals. Though I never really checked out my orders, I didn't really break my buck. At the end of all that, I was frustrated at my foolishness, because of the waste of time and energy. After all, one only wears one outfit and one pair of shoes at one time.
Luckily I seemed to have stumbled into a solution. In the later part of the vacation period, I started reading Yoga books that were laying around for months. I watched a DVD on digital photography using Canon T4i, which was my Christmas present from Jack. I practiced the piano and I blogged. When I was productive in this way, I was no longer obsessed with finding the best looking and most inexpensive pair of shoes.
No wonder there are 5 working days in a week. It all makes sense, doesn't it?
This is my life experience since I started working, and this life experience has been exaggerated the last 3 weeks. In fact, every year during the holiday season, this experience was exaggerated, and it constituted the dark side of me.
I don't believe in the modern economic measurement of double digit growth in businesses, because I think it is not sustainable, and it is irresponsible stewardship of the earth and future generations.
However, I hopelessly fell victim to American consumerism. During the Christmas and New Year holidays, I would spend hours shopping online for things I didn't really need, mostly clothing and accessories, just for the sake of finding good deals. Though I never really checked out my orders, I didn't really break my buck. At the end of all that, I was frustrated at my foolishness, because of the waste of time and energy. After all, one only wears one outfit and one pair of shoes at one time.
Luckily I seemed to have stumbled into a solution. In the later part of the vacation period, I started reading Yoga books that were laying around for months. I watched a DVD on digital photography using Canon T4i, which was my Christmas present from Jack. I practiced the piano and I blogged. When I was productive in this way, I was no longer obsessed with finding the best looking and most inexpensive pair of shoes.
No wonder there are 5 working days in a week. It all makes sense, doesn't it?
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Temptations
If you received as many junk mails as I do, you will probably understand and sympathize the difficulty to resist all the emails about holiday sales! Everyone is trying to sell something these days. I receive about 20 such emails everyday. At the same time advertisers bombard us via TV ads, annoying website popups and glossy mail catalogs. This is just too much and distasteful.
I have been doing really good so far, of course the minute I say this I would start to break, but I have not done any online or real shopping since black Friday started.
It's not like I don't open emails from vendors such as Bare Essential to see their up to 70% sales items, and certainly the 25% off coach coupon is ever so tempting, but I delete every such email everyday and put it behind me. I am not going to participate in fueling the American economy.
Does it work? It had been working so far, but I have no idea how long it will last, so I'll just roll with it.
At this point, I think buying more stuff for myself will not bring me as much happiness as the bitterness and depression I will get when I pay my credit card bills. So there is the motivation!
I have been doing really good so far, of course the minute I say this I would start to break, but I have not done any online or real shopping since black Friday started.
It's not like I don't open emails from vendors such as Bare Essential to see their up to 70% sales items, and certainly the 25% off coach coupon is ever so tempting, but I delete every such email everyday and put it behind me. I am not going to participate in fueling the American economy.
Does it work? It had been working so far, but I have no idea how long it will last, so I'll just roll with it.
At this point, I think buying more stuff for myself will not bring me as much happiness as the bitterness and depression I will get when I pay my credit card bills. So there is the motivation!
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