The Zen of shopping

Today I went out shopping. For the first time in my life I noticed so many people wanting to buy something or the other.
If there was one thing common among them, it was this – they were all in a hurry. They had stopped listening;
instead all they wanted was to get the thing that they wanted, no matter what.

Nobody seemed to care about the person (the store merchant) sitting across taking their orders. They just want it.
And they want it now. For a moment I thought that the Supermarkets are a better place where you can pick up what you want
without any middleman. The only person you have to encounter is the checkout cashier.

But what do these middlemen (in non supermarkets) bring to the table.

a) Expert knowledge about the market
b) Helping us get a product in one place rather than going all around the supermarket with a trolley
c) Interact with us in real time about products and related topics

To sum it, it is personalization at a gross level. I call it gross because the merchant still doesn’t know you intimately.
But he will, with the help of technology in the near future. Technology is going to be the edge for the merchant
as he differentiates his service better than a supermarket. Otherwise people are going to walk into that mall
and buy what they want. No consulting.

Anyway, the other thing that struck me was how people don’t listen attentively to the expert
(here the merchant being the person) They just browse through some points that satisfies them instead of engaging
in a discussion. I think that is probably because of lack of time.

According to me decisions made in hurry can be wrong ones. If only we had the patience to listen and by that I mean
willing to be slow, and let time take its own time, till what is revealed is pure satisfaction coming out of insight,
will we be actually content. Learning not inorganically but step by step and enjoying it too.

A beautiful world for all of us going round and round in circles
– is there an end ? Did it have a beginning ? You guessed it.

Best

Guru30