Black Friday as a day is dead.
The concept that the Friday after Thanksgiving is meant for buying things, is terrible for us.
Of course, Black Friday is now a week long. Which creates the strange linguistic paradox of calling something a day that lasts the whole workweek.
As consumers, this is better and more convenient. We can buy stuff online before Thanksgiving and then enjoy the holiday with family. And it further reduces the dehumanizing door busting and camping out overnight.
For people of faith, though, we should be skeptical of anything that makes us think buying things is good for us.
The theory behind this one shopping day to maximize our savings isn’t because businesses want to save us money. They are trying to convince us to spend money!
Business leaders know what they’re doing and how our brains work. They grasp the serotonin rush that comes from getting a good deal will convince us to spend money we otherwise wouldn’t.
Making it something akin to a national holiday means we plan to be manipulated. And we treat that like its something we’re supposed to enjoy.
Some restrain themselves and get good deals. And others make a grand show of buying nothing on Friday, only to spend hundreds of dollars on Saturday.
This isn’t about good or bad; right or wrong. There is no “right thing” to do.
When we realize Black Friday has always been a psychological scheme to convince us to buy things, however, we can be freed from its grip. We can be more in control of our own decisions.
Which includes how we spend our time, our money, and our commitments to one another.
And perhaps we will choose to own less and ultimately have more.