RE: Picking up Pennies: What Makes Something "Worthwhile?"
The example you gave about the gift certificates fits the premise of this post perfectly. It actually fits the premise or the situation of customer in a modern market even more perfectly.
A lot of it has to do with human nature but a lot of it has to do with how people are being trained to think. We have learned to associate value based on a products availability to our desires rather than our needs. Somehow easy fulfillment of basic needs go unappreciated because they have become so easy to fulfill. Feeling cold - blanket's are always there. Feeling hungry - food is always there..............
I say all this not as a measure of my or somebody else's ungratefulness. I say this as a measure of what happens when economic priorities become dissociated from how we understand modern economy.
Thanks for a great response @hashcash!
You raise some interesting points about overall economic conditions... and I guess we could even argue that we have "moved up" (as a society) in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
In recent years, I have been practicing more and more mindfulness and gratitude... which also involves truly looking at things and appreciating them; especially things like handicrafts from certain parts of Asia... pausing to note that some person actually sat and made this object with their hands so I can buy here at a novelty shop for $3.00.
There's definitely a lot of dissociation around us... especially between "source" and the reality of something being IN our lives.
Thanks for the appreciation man!
I just reached my thirties............ frankly speaking I struggle with showing gratitude. I mean true gratitude and not just words. Maybe I suck or maybe my whole generation did.
Whatever the case, I think that if we are make true progress we need to understand what we already have and where we have come from.