(The Philippine Star) Updated August 13, 2011 12:00
One of my alert and sharp assistants noticed
something odd happening inside the dressing room. She looked under and
was surprised to see shoes facing the curtain door as if on the lookout
for anyone who would suddenly open it.
A pair of our expensive Italian jeans doesn’t come cheap, that’s why
it has always been a target of shoplifters, amateurs and professionals
alike.
When the guard was alerted of a possible shoplifting, he followed the
suspect outside the store and questioned him.
True enough, the guard
found a pair of jeans neatly folded and wrapped around the suspect’s
stomach and another slipped into tight-fitting cycling shorts pair and
wrapped around his hips. The culprit, of course, was sent to jail, and
the alert sales attendant was given a very handsome reward.
This is one kind of happenings I had to face on a regular basis when I
was still in the retail business. But if you think this is bad, listen
to this next one.
Intruders broke into a department store in a large city. They stayed
in the store just long enough to do what they came to do. They escaped,
unnoticed. Curiously enough, these fellows took nothing. Absolutely
nothing. No merchandise was stolen and no items were removed.
The department store opened as usual. Employees went to work.
Customers began to shop. For four hours, everything was as normal as
they could be. For four hours! Until somebody finally took notice that
something had happened.
Price tags were swapped! Values were exchanged! If you were to
convert the prices into our local currency, the pranksters took the tag
off a P45,000 camera and stuck it on a P200 box of stationery. The P800
sticker on a paperback book was removed and placed on a television set.
Instead of stealing something, they changed the cost of everything!
For hours, no one noticed that all the values had been swapped. Sure,
some cashiers felt strange when they saw that a microwave oven was
being sold at less than P300. But it took the department store staff
four solid hours to notice something was really odd. Some people had
already gotten some great bargains. Others had gotten fleeced.
Hard to believe? It shouldn’t be - we see the same thing
happening every day. Our world today has a totally distorted value
system; the most valuable things in life are peddled for pennies, and
the cheapest smut go for millions.
We see it in the businessman who defends his illegal practices by saying, “Let’s not confuse business with ethics.”
We see it in the men in engineering and production who sell
top-secret information (together with their integrity) for a
higher-paying job offer, a couple of beers and a couple of kisses from a
couple of girls in some bar.
We see it in the father who molests his own twelve-year-old daughter.
And in the politician who flirts with under-aged girls over the
Internet.
Why do we do what we do? What causes us to elevate the body and
degrade the soul? What causes us to pamper the skin while we pollute the
heart?
It’s because our values are messed up. Someone broke into the store
and exchanged all the price tags. Thrills are going for top money, while
the value of human beings is at an all-time low.
Why is this happening? The reason is quite simple. There is no understanding of the eternal.
Life becomes what matters right here, right now in this decaying
planet. So the deceitful and wicked heart lives only for the moment.
What we fail to understand is that, the next life is infinitely longer
than the one we’re living now. The Word says, “Teach us to number our
days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
Stick to the original price and value of things. Don’t switch the
price tags. Before you even think of doing something crazy without
concern for the eternal, may I make a suggestion? Make the decision, as
well as all others, in a cemetery. That ought to sober you up a little.
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