The high holiday of Boxing Day needs some rethinking, and if not as a whole society, than definitely as meaningful individuals. I’m not sure how Boxing Day started, and I’m not even going to look it up, but I imagine that some time ago people returned their unwanted gifts, flooding retail stores with opened boxes and so those retail stores discounted those items because they certainly didn’t want them back.
Today that is not the case. Yes, a great deal of stuff that people bought with their credit card, probably in the final week as a matter of obligation will make its way back to the retail chains, and back to amazon, but Boxing Day is yet another day when people will flood stores or hop online to buy more things they may actually not need.
Think about it. It’s the day after Christmas. All the stress of preparation and family has gone. Uncle Ben who passed out drunk on the kitchen table has gone home, and instead of spending it with our families, the family separates and shops because Boxing Day offers some amazing deals.
Forgive my negativity and pissy mood this morning but you’ll have to agree that I don’t vent very often, so please, please humour me on this highest of holidays.
I don’t think we need more stuff. As a matter of fact I am not even sure if we even need the stuff we have or the stuff we think we want. Yet, love, peace, understanding and purpose alludes us as a human species. At the end of our life we wonder where the time has gone and beg for some more of it. Time that we spent in pursuit of money and bright shiny objects.
We can’t take anything with us. None of it. We can only leave with what is in our hearts, and that is where we keep the hearts and memories of others.
How silly we are as people. So stubborn and focused on fleeting things, yet so cold and distant to the things that truly matter.
I hope if you received something you didn’t want, that you simply give it away. You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but at least don’t spend any more time away from the people that matter, especially if you have a day to spend it with them.
Going forward think of things that unite people. Experiences are always better than things. A cup of coffee, a meaningful good morning text, and a joke to make someone smile cannot be boxed, cannot be consumed and cannot be preserved. Human kindness and happiness doesn’t last because it is meant to be given out over and over again.
We will become happier people when we learn to share ourselves with other people. We have to become less shy. Less uncertain of ourselves. Less worries and anxious about the future. Less of everything that makes us incomplete.
Today is Boxing Day. It’s time to unbox your heart.
It’s time to share and give a little.
Time to become who you know you know you really are.
Cover photo generously provided by photographer Dieter de Vroomenhttps://unsplash.com/@dieterdevroomen
