Keeping up my positive thinking, I saw the benefit of being ‘phone less’ for the evening. The next day, going back to the shop, I was careful to explain that I was upset that products nowadays are broken even before you use them. The lovely lady at the counter fully agreed. She encouraged me to write to headquarters as she was very aware of the problem. Clearly, I was not the first to return a useless product. She said: “We tell management, but they don’t listen to their employees. The only complaints they take onboard are the ones coming directly from our customers.”
We live in a society where not only employees’ voices are no longer heard but many more voices are silenced. The voice of honesty, the voice of integrity and, more than anything, the voice of common sense. New, tighter rules seem to be introduced by the day, to keep the profits growing but sustainability and service declining. Most of all the voice of humanity is at stake. How far do we have to take it? The truth is nobody is happy to sell trash, nobody is happy to cheat and corrupt, nobody is happy to lose their humanity.
Reflecting on the trend to empower yourself to make it in an increasingly competitive world, I wonder if it is really the solution? Is the solution to accept a failing system and make yourself more powerful? Is the solution really for an already individualistic society to become even more individualistic? Is it human to think: “As long as I can make it, I don’t care if the system continues, the increasing injustices continue?”
Undoubtedly, if you empower yourself and you do your own thing, it is easier to set your own rules. The more empowered you become both as far as knowledge and finances are concerned, the more you can choose where you want to put your attention. You become freer to choose the ethical, the human and the sustainable.
While waiting for that to happen, waiting for us to empower ourselves, to the point that we no longer must serve a system we do not agree with, let us be human. Let us be human and kind because that is what makes us happy; we are not that different from each other. We know that real joy is to be found in real things and real connections are to be found in real conversations.
