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A
Holiday Thought
HAPPY
HOLIDAYS FROM GRANDMASTER CAPRIO
It's
holiday time again! Greetings and salutations from the Caprio Academy for
Martial Arts Inc. from our heart to yours.
The
Media and toy companies have turned the holidays into big business. The
true meaning of the holidays has been lost on the editing room floor. You
can tell by the amount of toy commercials on the television.
What was once a peaceful
time for thankfulness and for giving to others has now turned into a nerve
racking event. We fight the
enormous crowds at the stores for a toy that our child must have (as well as
everyone else's child) which will probably end up discarded after three months.
We stand in department store lines that are longer than the line at the hottest
new ride at Great Adventure on a good day. We put up with rude salespeople who
have dealt with rude customers for at least 10 hours straight. We are taken in
by all the hype of the season and fool ourselves that this is the way it should
be. We might even believe that we are happy with the way things have
changed since we were kids.
Let us stop all this madness
for just one moment and think about the real holidays and what they should be
about. Let's think about all that
we have and not about all that we want. A person who is satisfied with
themselves and their possessions is a happy person. This is not to say that you
should not have goals, not at all, but there is a big difference between goals
and greed. One of Grandmaster Caprio's quotes is to understand "that
less is more". Greed will
make you miserable.
We could look at the
holidays as us "giving" to our children. Isn't that what the
holidays are about? What are we really teaching our children, by giving
them the latest toy, that they absolutely must have. When we give in to
their demands that they must have the same sneakers that everyone
else is wearing, we are teaching them greed,
not goals.
This does not mean that we
should not give our children what they need and even sometimes what they want.
But what about the things they already have that they no longer use? What
about last years "must have" toy, that is now covered with cobwebs in
the closet? What about if we let our kids pack up a few of those toys and
give them to children who don't have what they have? This could help our
children experience the joy of giving, that same joy we experience when we give
to our own children.
It doesn't matter
which holiday we celebrate, what we do for the holiday, or how we celebrate
them. We should all remember and strive to teach our kids to remember that
it's better to give than to receive and that what they have is not so bad
because there is always someone that has less. Children learn by example.
We are that example. Let's make this holiday season a year we will never
forget!
HAPPY
HOLIDAYS FROM GRANDMASTER CAPRIO
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