The Greatest Christmas Gift

It’s ironic that, in America, the day after Thanksgiving—a day of gratitude for what we have to appreciate in our lives—is dedicated to the acquisition of more. We’ve even given this day a name: “Black Friday.” Whether the term originated due to massive traffic jams on the day after Thanksgiving or because it was the day many merchants’ accounts went “in the black” as they began to turn a profit for the year, our actions on the highest-shopping day of the year sometimes have dark undertones.

This year, a woman pepper sprayed 20 competing customers in Los Angeles for a discounted Xbox. During 2008’s Black Friday, a Wal-mart worker was trampled to death and four people were taken to the hospital—including a woman eight months pregnant—after throngs of people stormed the front door as the Long Island superstore opened early Friday morning.

The practice of Black Friday, which commences with waiting in line—often in the bitter cold—from unseemly hours of the morning and, for some, culminates in a “hot deal,” has also provided a much-needed boost to a fragile economy: America’s retailers generated revenues of $52.4 billion—up 16.7 percent from last year—on this year’s Black Friday.

America’s shopping culture—already in overdrive compared to just about any other nation—has recently injected itself with steroids. Macy’s just announced it will be open 24 hours a day for the 83 hours leading up to Christmas eve, only to be outdone by Toys ‘R Us (112 hours). My wife and I made a trip to the shopping mall on Saturday and I was surprised to learn that many other stores have been open all month until 11 pm, up a few hours daily from even a few years ago.

Black Friday used to mean that retailers opened at 6 am; in 2011, for the first time in history, many retailers, including Macy’s, opened at midnight the day before. Even before these extended shopping hours, America had built a reputation—highlighted by the massive numbers of people who come here from all over the world on shopping trips—as a nation of convenience, and one of the best places on the planet to consume what you want, when you want it, at the lowest price.

In most countries, merchants don’t keep these kind of hours because their employees and customers like to have, well, a life. The Black Friday incidents and the increasingly porous shopping hours betray a cultural shift that is stealthily affecting us: our acquisitiveness is becoming desperate. While it’s true that many of us aren’t doing as well financially as we were a few years ago, we must remember that to internalize the downturn is a choice. When we can’t find our worth on the inside, we futilely seek it on the outside. Buying things for our loved ones is a way of trying to convince them—and ourselves—that we are still doing OK, that we still have value.

Both we and our popular merchants are desperately attempting to demonstrate our continued relevance, and it’s difficult to determine who is mimicking who. One thing is certain: the bricks-and-mortars merchants are emulating the online merchants, who are always open 24-7, not just during the holidays.

The mania retailers feel is understandable: our government’s decision not to tax online vendors like amazon—which already has the advantage of not paying prime storefront rent, or any retail rent for that matter—unfairly threatens their existence, and their place in our local communities. In this sense, at least, one positive of Black Friday is it’s the one day when many of us step out from behind our computers and actually interact with other human beings while engaging in real (e.g. not virtual) commerce. There are many stories of new friendships initiated while standing in line next to a stranger in the wee hours of the morning.

Yet whether all this consumerism is truly in “the holiday spirit” is debatable. Most of us are over-working ourselves in order to maintain our current lifestyles in a troubled economy to the extent that we no longer have time for the people we love. To compensate for our lack of attention, we shower them with gifts while we distractedly check our smart-phones.

We focus on giving others our presents, when what they truly want from us is our presence. In many families, the first has become a substitute for a lack of the second. In fact, many of us no longer spend any significant amount of time even choosing presents to give, and instead email gift certificates—which are useful but mostly soulless. An amazon gift certificate is one shade short of giving cash, since you can buy just about anything (the purpose of legal tender) on their website. There is a reason most of us made the shift years ago from giving cash to giving gifts: a gift signals that you actually took some time to think about the other person. That feeling—that the other person put a lot of care into your gift—has become for many a fading fantasy.

We have become so disconnected from both ourselves and others that we shop as yet another form of distraction, as if we needed one. For many of us, shopping is like dating: it’s the thrill of the chase rather than enjoying the catch—and, whether it’s a potential mate or a discounted laptop, we’ll stay out all night in the hopes of conquest—that keeps us coming back for more.

One of my favorite cartoons is of an old man on his deathbed saying to one of his family members, “I should have bought more crap.” What we most deeply desire from others is love, not material possessions. A study of happiness by Richard Layard of the London School of Economics has documented that while families that earn $50,000 per year are measurably happier than those that earn $10,000 per year, and families that earn $100,000 per year are slightly happier than those that earn $50,000 per year, families that earn $500,000 per year have no measurable increase in happiness over families that earn $100,000 per year. These studies yield the same results whether survey respondents are all in the U.S. or the UK, or by international cross-country comparisons.

David Geffen once said, “Those who think money buys happiness don’t have money.” The happiness studies demonstrate that Geffen is only partially right; the other part of the equation is that those who think money is unrelated to happiness have a lot of money. It seems we need a balance of presence and presents, with a strong tilt toward the former.

I recently saw Thich Nhat Hanh, the 85 year old Vietnamese monk who Martin Luther King, Jr. nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, speak at the Warner Theater in Washington, D.C. The Buddhist monk asked the sold-out crowd, “What is the greatest gift you can give to the person you love?” After a hushed silence, he shared: “To be fully present.”

To be fully present with others, we must first be fully present with ourselves. We are so quick to externalize our challenges, whether it’s our shrinking checkbook or our fear about our jobs. Before we Occupy Wall Street or Occupy the Shopping Mall, we need to Occupy Ourselves. How do we do this, and become fully present? By taking an inner detour, slowing down a bit, and learning how to spend quality time with ourselves—not online, not seeking the next best deal; simply befriending the silence rather than running from it.

In my leadership conferences, I often call this principle “Schedule Solitude.” It is this silence that connects us with our deepest values and life Vision. When we become fully present with ourselves, we become less interested in amassing things or even amassing knowledge. Instead, we connect with our inner wisdom that signals what we most deeply value.

Once we increase our comfort with being alone and reflecting on what gives our life meaning, we naturally become ready and available to listen with empathy, to truly care about what others value, and to also learn to speak authentically and give voice to what lies deep inside so we can make a genuine connection with others that creates meaning in our lives. This is the greatest gift we can offer to the people we love.