Take a look at a group of married couples who are all in their thirties or forties or fifties and the questions will arise: "Why did she marry him?" or "Why did he marry her?" You can't quite see for yourself why those two got married or how they stay married. So, all those couples that you look at questioningly must have been the ones who got married later in life, right? Wrong.
When your only goal seems to be to get married and you want it now not later, you are just as likely to grab the first possibility as you are the best possibility. Being married first is not a predictor of how a marriage will turn out. "Best" and "first," when they apply to marriage, are not synonyms.
It's "Black Friday" and shoppers have been camped out overnight to grab the bargains that are going on sale. The lines strain to be let into the stores, the manager raises the starting pistol, he shoots, and mayhem ensues. People dash into the malls and the grabbing begins. You see the ones with "shopping fever" burning brightly in their eyes. It doesn't matter if what they are stuffing into their shopping bags will fit or not, is the right color or not, is even something they want or need: it's a bargain and they got it and someone else didn't, so there. They got this season's newest doodad and that is all that matters. Imagine the envy that will be in their friends' eyes when they announce "I got the X-Bot 250A with power enhancement!"
(Note: and just what will they do or how will they feel when they find out that if they had only waited a bit more patiently they could have gotten the X-bot New and Improved 251-B?)
Then there are the shoppers who look on this with a bit of a jaded eye. They can't see shopping as a competition. They like to look around the stores--many stores--and comparison shop. They've given some thought to their purchases. They've checked out the use and operating costs of some items and decided not to buy. They take their time and when they do buy they are generally more satisfied with what they bring home. Had they been shopping on Black Friday they might well have settled for a "pink" one of something just to get it even if a "blue" one might look better. Pink, blue--what's the difference? For the discerning shopper there is a difference, and they have had time to think about that difference.
That doesn't mean that those who didn't shop on Black Friday don't sometimes envy those who did. "They've finished their shopping and I have yet to begin" we think. But we need to remind ourselves that it is NOT the item that we are really envious of--it is that the shopping trips are over for those people. If you hate shopping, by all means settle on the first thing you see and get it over with. If, however, your purpose is to find "the" item that will make you deliriously happy, resign yourself to having to possibly shop longer.
I got married at 24. Just what did I miss by not getting married at 19? At this point in the lives of people my age no one remembers or cares who got married first and who got married last--it is totally irrelevant. But we do wonder about those who grabbed a "pink" one when everybody can see they are clearly "blue" people.
4 comments:
Oh boy do I wish I could show this to my mother and a whole bunch of other people but then I would have to explain that it was on the internet and on a blog and I'm not going there.
Intereswting idea, the ones who go first are the ones who are settling so they can say they are married and those who go later are actually choosing what they want. My wife agrees, so I agree too.
So there I was shopping on black friday and I did manage to get some real bargains on things I needed to buy. I'll be honest and admit that not everything I bought was exactly the color or type I would have bought if I'd shopped some more in different stores. But some of them are good enough for the purpose I need them for. And yes, sigh, I'm going to have to be returning some things on Monday that looked a lot better in the store on sale then they looked when I had a chance to think about them at home.
Will I do this again next year? I say I won't and every year I find myself getting up at a ridiculous hour to go shopping. There is something about the word sale that people can't resist.
Yes, I sometimes wonder about how some of the people I know got married. Mostly it works for them or at least we don't see the real problems. But the ones who end up with problem marriages or divorced we are not usually surprised about because there even they couldn't figure out why they got married.
I did a Black Friday article for journalism class last year. I brought home a list of items and prices and related them to my mother with starry-eyed astonishment. She was unimpressed. A veteran coupon-clipper, she gets better prices without waking up at 4 am.
Not sure if that material for a mashal, but it's an interesting phenomenon.
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