Every year on Boxing Day, me and my extended family would go to one of the largest shopping centres in our area to seek out the Christmas sales. I have mostly fond memories of this, despite every year starting the morning spending an unearthly amount of time in a budget clothes store, I always really enjoyed my time, as it was an entire day to spend with my cousins and grandparents. As far as the shopping experience goes, my highlights were lunch, and buying something from a, or should I say the, video game store.
One particular year, I can’t remember exactly how much money I had to spend, (It wouldn’t have been much, this was before I hit my teens) we entered the store and queued up to buy something I really wanted. Fortunately, I had just about enough to make the purchase, so I happily went ahead with it. There is something magical about getting something you really want as a child, it’s a feeling that can’t be matched as an adult, at least not in my experience.
As my mum handed over the cash to the assistant, she scanned our video store rewards card as she always would. You could choose to spend the existing points or build them up for a bigger future discount. This card had been a lifesaver on a number of occasions in allowing me to make a purchase I simply wouldn’t have been able to make without it. As mentioned earlier, I hadn’t quite hit my teens here, but I understood the basic concept of gaining points each time you make a purchase at this particular store.
Anyway, I was on top of the world, life couldn’t get much better; I had everything I ever wanted in that moment and nobody could have told me otherwise. Soon after, my cousin went into the store with my mum. A little later she too ran out, almost squeeling with joy. “Look what I got, Aunty scanned her card and I was able to buy this!”. From what I remember, the rewards card slashed almost half off the purchase price.
My heart sunk, I was deeply angry inside, yet I only vocalised those feelings in a mild to moderate way at best. So much effort went into building up points on that reward card, and they were spent on something I didn’t benefit from. What made matters worse for me is knowing that my cousin didn’t understand the concept of the card, at least as far as I could tell, and that it was mostly my purchases which allowed her to use the points, and therefore receive the discount.
I’ll never forget that day, mostly because I now understand how I leaned towards being selfish. We can start with how the rewards card wasn’t exclusively mine to begin with. Yes, most of the purchases would have been made by myself, but some by my siblings, and some would have been directly funded by my parents. But more importantly, I failed to see the joy that resulted in the eyes of my cousin. Without the rewards card, she wouldn’t have been able to make the purchase, and her day wouldn’t have been just as perfect as mine.
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