ChrisShaul.com

Holiday Parties

Getting ready to go to my company’s annual holiday party. Sure doesn’t feel like the holidays… I guess part of it is living in Southern California. You don’t get the delineation of seasons. So to me it is still fall. When will winter be here? Aren’t the holidays in winter?

What is the point of the holiday anyway? Aren’t we programmed by the media and the retail industry to feel joyeous and giving? Why do we need a season to be kind to others? Shouldn’t you be giving and kind all year round? Oh yeah, this is right before the year end and quarter end financial reporting. Tis the season to be profitable.

I heard an unsubstantiated factoid that more people commit suicide on Christmas day than any other day. Hmmm… makes sense. The Christian day of celebrating the birth of the savior… most suidices… something is out of wack.

Now that I am a Buddhist, Christmas doesn’t hold the same fascination it did growing up in a generic Christian household. Buddhism teaches you the law of cause and effect is very strict. So if you are kind to others all year round, you will receive kindness yourself. If you are rude and self serving (like in mall parking lots), you will receive the same. You are either spiraling up in a path towards enlightenment, or you are creating the causes that lead you downwards to lower life conditions.

Somehow this whole holiday season seems shallow and thus people are forced into behavior that brings out the stress and strain. What if people celebrated one another all the time? What if giving was from the heart? What if giving was for the other, instead of ourselves?

Just a thought.