What's wrong with Black Friday?

In the US, Black Friday is the next day after Thanksgiving. But what happens if you live in a totally different country, in a different continent, thousands of kilometers away?

Then you get Black Friday ads on TV all week long, and on frakking youtube, in your native language! My dad and I talked about this, that this year was probably the first, or maybe it was so evident, because it was in our face, almost 24/7 for a whole week. This year I won't give anything to my dad for Christmas, while he got me something already. Usually it's the other way.

BF is about the feeling of "I don't want to miss out on anything", just because it's freaking cheap you don't have to buy it.

I am guilty too. I bought some really old games on GOG. I completed my Thief trilogy (playthrough is going well btw), with Thief II and Thief Deadly Shadows, plus I picked up Deus Ex, which was also heavily influenced by the original Thief games. But these I'd have bought anyway on the Christmas sale, or the next sale anyway. Go check them out on GOG, they are great games. If you have kids, and they are old enough, play with them, show a different side of gaming. It's also good mental exercise, they surely will learn patience from these games…

I grow up valuing money. We didn't have much, so we always thought about spending wisely. But even we got into debt, and we are still paying for it. I myself am debt-free for almost a year. I payed off my student-loan, and I feel lighter because of it. Honestly it seriously helped me mentally, that I don't have to think about it, at the beginning of every month.

So yes, people don't think about what they do this time of year, and we now have opposition between people, who said: "I won't buy anything on this day!" But what do you do the other day of the year?

I don't think it's about the day, but how do you value the thing you want to buy. I heard a good saying from Ajahn Brahm, an English buddhist monk: "If you want something more, you can't appreciate the things you already have." - why would I want another thing, when the present want absolutely in good condition, still works, and has no sign that it will broke for the foreseeable future?

That one sentence changed everything for me this year, especially. I like mechanical keyboards and I always looking at things I can offered in the future. But as I looked down on mine, I see a perfectly good keyboard. I love it! Why would I want another one? Same as I look at my mouse. I think it's 3 years old maybe. Who cares? It's perfect. It was so cheap and I have a good mousepad too. My monitor still works and it's now 6 years old. I use it every day, and it has no sign to give up. My computer did give up about 3 weeks ago, and I had to get another one, but now I am a happy another of a refurbished one. Faster than the previous one, and so far it works very well.

I went so far, this week I deleted my ebay account. Amazon is probably next, although I may leave this open because some of the things in my country are really, really expensive. Like if I want something simple (a book in English), I have to pay so much here, that even with shipping from Amazon is so much cheaper.

It's entirely different, when you have clothes that are old, patchy or you see that the material is giving up. Or if you experience that your computer mouse is not precise or act twitchy. Although in that case just go into the nearest store and buy one of the cheap ones. You truely don't need an expensive mouse, unless you have some kind of condition that you need some special one.

Black Friday is not a bad day. It's a day for celebrating decisions. But you also have to make decisions for the rest of the year. So, does it matter?…