I hate shopping. I get overwhelmed very easily by the competing demands of all the products, prices, and salespeople. When I can’t find what I’m looking for right away, I tend to get discouraged and walk away, often intending to make do without. So when I went to the neighborhood camera store to buy a replacement battery and they didn’t stock the kind I needed, I took a deep breath and girded my loins to plunge into what must be the world’s most bustling, enormous camera and video superstore.
It was an astonishing experience. I was directed to the second floor where I waited in a short line. The clerk typed my request into his computer and within seconds, a little bin shot up along a conveyor belt straight from the warehouse. The clerk put the battery in another bin and sent it along; I received a receipt, and went downstairs to pay. After paying, I was directed to a third station where my battery was already packaged into a little bag and was ready to be picked up and taken home. The whole thing took less than ten minutes and each person I interacted with was friendly and helpful.
This experience brought me a completely new sense of awareness and appreciation. In truth, every time I go to the grocery store or to the bookstore or to buy a new pair of hiking boots, there are steps of the process that are usually completely invisible to me. I pick the product off the shelf and take it to the cashier and carry it home. But someone keeps the books and pays the invoices for the merchandise. Someone put the product on the shelf. Someone ordered it. Someone transported it to the store. Someone packaged it. Someone made or took care of or grew it. There are entire systems at play that enable me to buy an object. And this is not even to mention the fact that some of these systems are fair and others cause untold suffering to those who are part of it and to the earth itself.
How would shopping be different if I stopped to remember the chain of people, places and events that enabled each thing I wanted to buy? Instead of being largely an experience of desire, ignorance, and gratification, could it be an experience of appreciation, awareness and responsibility? And how might that ripple out into the world?