Gifts

It's New Years Eve, a time to reflect on not just last year, which was possibly one of the worst I can remember worldwide. It's also a time to reflect personally on achievements & failures. However, the past is simply that. Gone. Impossible to change. But there are lessons to be learned if we are open to change ourselves.

I find myself thinking about gifts, both tangible & experiential. I was remembering childhood postwar Christmasses with a friend. We both came from very ordinary homes with very little money. Christmas was far simpler, but there was still huge anticipation. There were not many presents in our stockings or under the tree, but we don't feel that we were deprived. 

Christmas today is a totally different celebration. It is undoubtedly far more commercialised & starts much earlier. There is constant advertising pressure to spend, which raises expectations. Retail makes a huge percentage of annual profit over the Christmas period. There is a massive amount of money involved, even in the current financial situation. https://www.finder.com/uk/christmas-shopping-statistics

We humans have always been given gifts that we didn't value. There are the unwanted presents that go now to the "present drawer" or the charity shop. At least they aren't thrown out, but there is a huge amount of waste - Christmas food is a prime example.

Modern communications have made us well aware that we have been given environmental gifts which are priceless & we have unthinkingly squandered them. We have been like children at Christmas - we have torn the wrapping off, used the gift briefly & then discarded it instead of recognising it's worth.

We have been given the supreme gift of intelligence. We are aware of the consequences to the world we inhabit of our greedy & thoughtless actions. We have to stop thinking of ourselves as special & entitled. We do not have the right to continue using up the finite resouces we have been given. We do not have the right to destroy habitats & everything in them to satisfy our own rampant greed.

There is a price to pay for gifts. They do not come free. We need to change our actions, attitudes & expectations. We have been profligate & selfish & created the Climate Emergency. We are clever & inventive. We have the capacity to rectify the mistakes of the past. The time to put that right is now, before it's too late. 

If we don't I can't bear to think of the gift we are leaving to our grandchildren.