Camera Store - The Hell of Retail

In Response to Feedback

In the post "That's Greek To Me", I said "I hate not having the nicest camera in the room. It does happen sometimes". Some people took that literally. I hope you did not. I am NOT annoyed when I do not have the nicest camera in the room - it's usually an opportunity to learn more about photography and to briefly play with someone's cool toy. Although I must admit it does feel kinda nice to have the nicest camera in the room, which is the case often.

And in my post about "The Key To Happiness", I said people should not be unhappy about having retail jobs if they (the people) are on track to their goals in life, or have decided they are not qualified to do anything else and unable to get those qualifications (which is a questionable decision but anyways). This, I do pretty much mean. I have received feedback saying that no one who has a crappy job, or a crappy life in general, should have to be happy about it. "Retail is hell", my friend said, "even if it's all you can do, and just the fact that it's all you can do does not mean that it's easier to put up with". I don't think I entirely agree with my friend this. Yes, retail is hell. But in everyone's life, you do the best you can, you may or may not make it quite as high as you were aiming, but you get SOMEwhere. And no matter WHERE that is (in terms of income and other areas of one's personal life), it's not as good as the higher, more desireable situation, but also not as bad as the next-lower situation that you managed to keep yourself out of. In other words, every life has its difficulties, and I think there is some happiness to be had when you know that you've made a life where you do NOT have some of the difficulties other people have, and where you did the best you could. Sure, modern society is not completely meritocratic, and some lucky people have more opportunities than others, but is it productive to be unhappy all the time about how good other people have it? It can be, if this unhappiness motivates you, I guess. But if there's nothing you can do, then there isn't much of a point to being unhappy.

posted by Remus