Abandoned Shopping Carts: Personal and Spiritual Responsibility

By William Bezanson

This book is an appeal to think clearly for yourself in order to regain a sense of responsibility for taking care of humanity and the world; and it offers a set of suggestions for doing so. The book uses the theme of abandoned shopping carts as a graphic symbol of uncaring relinquishment of responsibility in many areas of life, such as littering, driving rudely, and not voting in elections.

The world and humanity are falling apart. This book offers a vivid call to action to save them, using a simple model from everyday experience: not abandoning your shopping carts.

The solution offered here is that people must regain a sense of spiritual responsibility (not religious, but spiritual) as the most important aspect of living, and that all other forms of responsibility will follow.

Abandoned Shopping Carts will appeal to people who are disenchanted by society's wastefulness and neglect, and who want an inspiration for changing their lives for the better.

People are ready for a book that cuts straight to the truth that we all know inwardly: we are spiritual beings temporarily living in a physical body, and our prime personal responsibility to ourselves and the world is a spiritual one.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Sep 7, 2011
• ISBN: 9781426989513

William Bezanson

William Bezanson is a retired engineer who writes on systems design and general world stewardship topics. His interest in spiritual growth and long-term personal and global development prompted him to write this book, his fifth, to contribute to mankind's evolution. He lives with his wife in Ottawa, Canada.

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© Copyright 2011 William Bezanson.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

Printed in the United States of America.

isbn: 978-1-4269-8949-0 (sc)

isbn: 978-1-4269-8950-6 (hc)

isbn: 978-1-4269-8951-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011913938

Trafford rev. 08/31/2011

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North America & international

toll-free: 1 888 232 4444 (USA & Canada)

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By the same author:

Performance Support Solutions: Achieving Business Goals Through Enabling User Performance

Why Are Gas Prices So High? (Want a Better World? Slow Down And Save)

Making Products Obvious: Performance-Centered Design

Life of Phi: Beauty and the Golden Ratio

For Susan

In memory of my parents,

Howard and Marie Bezanson

Contents

Acknowledgments

Permissions

Prelude

Introduction

Chapter 1: Abandoned shopping carts

Shopping cart by a bus stop

Shopping cart dumping ground

Shopping cart left in a hallway

Cart on a suburban street

Beside a corral

A look at shopping cart economics

Chapter 2: Destroying the earth’s environment

Littering: Throwing out a stove in a parking lot

Leave each campsite cleaner than you found it

Resist overconsumption

Why are gas prices so high? Drive the speed limit.

The large hadron collider

What can I do?

Chapter 3: Lack of civic responsibility

Responsibility in the workplace

Calculators in schools

When at war, sacrifice at home

Drive responsibly

Delaying for latecomers

Thirty-nine trillion dollars … and counting

Vote

Smokers’ entitlement has got to go!

The woman is always right

Interlude: A conversation - 1

Chapter 4: Using your life responsibly

Eat the icing last

Cruising for the best parking spot

Making purchase decisions based solely on price

Be thrifty

Use accrual accounting for your personal and home finances

Use your brain for a change

Do it because it’s right, not because a cop might be watching

Live to the east of where you work

How to decide

Watching too much television

Be attentive

CHAPTER 5: Responsibility to other people

Setting good examples

See the big picture

Always use an editor

Think like a user

What is clockwise?

VOIP phones and their misusage

CHAPTER 6: Spiritual responsibility

Spiritual responsibility

Reality and actuality

The most important thing

Develop your conception of God

Prayer works!

How to pray

Why are the pews so empty?

Live by the golden rule

Postlude: A conversation - 2

Appendix: Further reading

Acknowledgments

I am happy to acknowledge suggestions and comments from readers of earlier versions of this book: Nancy Berranger, Greg Bezanson, Maureen Bezanson, Melanie Chursinoff, Giovanni Lamonica, Ashley Van Sertima, Audrey Van Sertima, Frank Van Sertima, Susan Van Sertima, and George Wykoff.

I extend my thanks to Ivan Ronayne for many discussions that helped to clarify my thinking for this book; to Steve Bezanson, for giving me the cartoon about the Large Hadron Collider; to Paul Jones, for giving me the picture of the Saudi Arabian mega shopping cart; and to Gerry McDaniel, for providing information on some of the costs to his business of providing shopping carts to his customers.

The book was expertly edited by Elizabeth Tevlin. Her contribution opened up my view to be compassionate to shopping cart abandoners, to consolidate and restructure some sections, and to ponder deeply about my intentions for the book. Based on her recommendations I did considerable rewriting of the manuscript.

Any remaining errors or deficiencies in the book are due to my own neglect, not that of the editor or any of the reviewers.

This book is written in memory of my parents, Howard and Marie Bezanson, both deceased. They engendered in me a sense of responsibility on many levels, leading to my inspiration to write this book. This acknowledgment of my memory of Mom and Dad marks my gratitude, admiration, and love for them.

My lovely wife, Susan, is my dedicatee for the book. She tolerated and encouraged my research and writing, and she continues to provide the environment of love and peacefulness that I have come to treasure. This book is For Susan.

Permissions

Most of the images used in this book are pictures taken by the author (the pictures of abandoned shopping carts were not fabricated or staged; they are photographs of actual situations), or were purchased from the royalty-free service of Can Stock Photo (www.canstockphoto.com); or are in the public domain. Others, for which permission was granted, are cited on the pages in which they appear.

Prelude

Nature exists. It has always existed, and it always will exist.

It was not created. It has always existed.

Nature evolved, and it continues to evolve.

This universe came into being by means of natural processes taking place among the other universes.

Life forms always existed, they evolved, and they continue to evolve.

Nature has both physical and spiritual forms. The physical forms can be perceived and measured with physical senses and mechanisms. The spiritual forms cannot be perceived with physical senses, but require spiritual senses to do so.

Space and time do not exist. Everything is happening Here, Now!

Introduction

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One sees abandoned shopping carts everywhere, especially in the parking lots of shopping centres and grocery stores. This one was placed up on a concrete median, thus showing a bit of consideration on the part of its abandoner by not leaving it in the way of cars or pedestrians.

At one time the earth was a big place, so big that its size was inconceivable to humans. It was even considered to be flat. One’s actions had essentially no impact on the planet.

Now, in modern times, the earth is a small place. It is now undeniably spherical, and its former huge 8,000 mile diameter is now not quite a mere 13,000 km. Our perceptions of size have changed. Television news brings the most distant conflict, earthquake, and famine right into our homes with live coverage.

The earth has become so small, in many people’s conception of it, that we can easily see all of it, examine all of it, and think about all of it. Nobody else of significance will do our thinking for us. We must think for ourselves about our relationship with the earth. We must not make an abandoned shopping cart of our Home.

Where else can we go if we ruin our home? Who else will help us if we let the earth rot to the point of not being able to sustain human life? How can we survive, even with super-advanced technology, when there is nowhere to exist in living form? Why would we allow such a situation to manifest?

But life can be so busy for us that we hardly have time to realize how the earth has shrunk, in our reality, but of course not in actuality. Our activities have grown tremendously. Virtually every interaction that we have has increased somehow, in complexity, in number, in frequency, and in other ways. There are more items to read, more demands on time, more things to buy, more trips to take, more electronic-based social network interactions, more health concerns, more financial options, and so on. Who has time to think about our impacts on the planet, and to do anything about them?

But think we must!

Nobody else will think for us. In fact, many organizations depend on us not to think. Marketers don’t want us to think, but to keep buying. Bankers don’t want us to think, but to keep borrowing. Religious leaders don’t want us to think, but to keep being faithful sheep. Governments don’t want us to think, but to keep paying taxes and voting to reelect the politicians. Medical practitioners don’t want us to think, but to keep taking pills in compliance with directions from their real masters: the pharmaceutical companies. Teachers don’t want us to think, but to memorize, regurgitate, and graduate. Parents don’t want us to think, but to be like them. The list goes on and on.

The prime goal of thinking is to make rational judgments. And the most vital issue for which we must make some rational judgments is concerning the fragility of our delicately balanced, precious, island home, the Earth.

We must think for ourselves, so that we can make right choices! This is the only reasonable course of action for us. In short, we must all be personally responsible for the earth’s environment, its sustainability, and its future … and also for humanity’s evolution, sustainability, and future.

Ultimately, thinking for ourselves should inspire us to do the proper actions in all circumstances, for our own lives, for the world, and for God. So this book is about not only thinking for yourself, but also doing the right thing.

I have chosen the theme of Abandoned Shopping Carts as a common thread and foundation for the chapters and articles of this book. That theme will guide us on a journey from personal responsibility, through civic responsibility, and others, to spiritual responsibility. Each chapter is divided into a set of articles. Through each article the fundamental question about the topic is whether we abandon it, as we might abandon a shopping cart. Or will we accept our responsibility to take care of the world, ourselves, our communities, and so on?

In the first chapter, we start by looking at some pictures of shopping carts that have been abandoned, and think about what motivated the people who abandoned them. We then look at other forms of littering and neglect of our earth’s environment in Chapter 2. The next chapter broadens our scope to examine several aspects of responsibility to our communities and countries.

Chapter 4 considers our personal responsibility to our selves, including proper thinking, thriftiness, decision making, and other topics. Then, in the next chapter, we address the topic of responsible dealings with other people, such as our customers, family, and friends. Finally, Chapter 6 considers the most important topic of all, namely spiritual responsibility. By being fully responsible to our spiritual selves, all else follows. With mature spirituality, we automatically adopt a sincere responsibility for all the other topics that are covered in this book.

An interlude mid-way through the book and a postlude at the end give a fictional account of mankind’s evolution from the lofty perspective of spiritual beings entrusted with the responsibility of inspiring us to self-preservation and growth.

To give you a sense of the overall flavour of the book, let’s consider what is your mission or purpose in life. What do you hope to accomplish before you die? Why were you born here, now, in this form?

Just as a lighthouse gives ships a guide, a directional indicator, and a warning of danger, so a well-defined mission and purpose for your life provide guidance, indicators, and warnings as you navigate the various calm and rough seas of your life.

I have no idea what your mission is, but I do very much recommend that you formulate it.

The best I can do, perhaps, is to explain what my own mission is. My hope is that by doing so, I might inspire you to strive to find your own. The lighthouse for your Life can be encapsulated into a well-researched statement of your mission. That’s why working on such a statement is important.

For many years I wandered around in mission-land, bouncing from one inspiration to another. I was attracted to numerous noble ideals, and read about one or more for a time, then switched to another. I admired people who seemed to know their purpose in life, and who focused their work and energies on achieving that purpose. I tried to emulate them, felt guilty when I fell short, and wallowed