Seasons of Love

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I spent the week designing new artwork for Halloween 2018. I was beyond proud of myself. I sent it to a few close friends for feedback and they all said it was amazing and they had few changes which needed to be made. I always like creative criticism and feel that it is really good to get a second, third or fourth opinion on all projects. I was extremely proud of myself and on cloud 9. Then I received an email from a customer who purchased a Mystery Box. She stated that she was disappointed in the box. A couple hours later, another email came in, saying the same thing. I have never, ever received negative e mails and it caught me off guard! Usually when I receive emails from customers, it is stating how much they love the product they ordered. Then, through friends, I discovered that someone posted on a Facebook Group how disappointed they were in our Mystery Boxes. Other members of the group started to express their dissatisfaction. They started posting pictures and stating how upset they were. Included in the mystery box was one of our Coffin Bags and other goodies which were priced at a value of $15 - $60.

One girl complained about receiving an earring and necklace set designed by Betsey Johnson, which I had from when I had a physical store. Another complained about jewelry that I had handmade. The vile comments threw me into a state of depression and sadness. I asked my friend Kris if I should respond with perhaps a code to get a huge discount on items on our website, or maybe I could send each person more goodies. I had no idea how to rectify the situation. I felt as if the thread was taking on a mob mentality. One person didn’t like what they got, and so everyone else started stating that they disliked what they got. I decided that to write a response in haste would only fuel their fire. So, I decided to sleep on it. The issue invaded my dreams, which turned into nightmares.

The following day my mother and I had tickets to see RENT in Tucson. As much as I wanted to cancel and wallow in my misery for disappointing people, I went anyways. On the two hour drive to Tucson, my mother recalled stories of when my grandfather had his shoe store, and would custom design shoes for women and how half the time, they were never satisfied. Never satisfied. NEVER SATISFIED! Let me dive a little deeper into the orders we received for the Mystery Boxes!

We were doing a Countdown to Halloween sale for our newsletter subscribers. It was used to entice people to sign up for our newsletter. Everyday from Friday the 13th to Halloween we had a different item on sale on our website. Unless you were an email subscriber you did not know what the item was. Our Mystery Boxes are normally $30, plus shipping. The special for that day was the Mystery Box for $25. In the Mystery Box you are guaranteed one of our Coffin Bags valued at $30 plus anywhere from $15 - $60 worth of merchandise. Could be one item or 5. The entire point of the Mystery Box is that it is a MYSTERY! It is a gamble, you don’t know what you are going to get. One of our newsletter subscribers shared it on a Facebook Group as well as sharing a coupon code for our website. 90% of the people who purchased the Mystery Box from the post on the newsgroup paid $21 or less, yet received a Coffin Bag, additional march and were still upset.

My mother and get to the theatre. Our bags are checked for weapons. We go to the girl's room and then find our seats, and the show begins. I tried my best to leave my emotions at the theatre entrance and fully focused my attention on the show, one of my all time favorites. During intermission I check my phone to see that I got a news update that a church outside of San Antonio had a mass shooting and 20 people had died. I opened Facebook to see if there was more information, and saw that the thread regarding the unhappy customers had grown. At which point the lights dimmed and the show continued with the Seasons of Love number. For those who have never see the musical RENT or listened to the soundtrack, I am copying the lyrics below:

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes

Five hundred twenty-five thousand moments so dear

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes

How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets

In midnights, in cups of coffee

In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife

In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes

How do you measure, a year in the life?

How about love?

Measure in love

Seasons of love

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes

Five hundred twenty-five thousand journeys to plan

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes

How do you measure the life of a woman or a man?

In truths that she learned

Or in times that he cried

In bridges he burned

Or the way that she died

It's time now, to sing out

Though the story never ends

Let's celebrate

Remember a year in the life of friends

Remember the love (oh, you got to, you got to remember the love)

Remember the love (you know that love is a gift from up above)

Remember the love (share love, give love, spread love)

Measure in love (measure, measure your life in love)

Seasons of love (love)

Seasons of love (measure your life, measure you life in love)

I started to tear up. This one song just told me everything I needed to know to rectify the problem. I decided I was not going to allow them to upset me anymore. I would not bow down to their negative temper tantrum. They were upset because they didn’t get the color bag, or bat, or the extra goodies they were hoping for. Unless I was a mind reader, or knew them all personally, there was no way I could make them all happy. Not to mention, the majority got a huge discount on what they received. I was not going to let their opinions on my designs bring me down any longer. Instead of hating them and myself, I decided to not waste my time and energy on it. In the scary world we live in, why do we dwell on being so unhappy and dissatisfied by a bag? Why spew your hate on social media in an attempt to ruin a reputation or to try to prevent other people from purchasing from us?

Instead, why don’t we try to spread love and kindness? To create something with our hearts and hands? To allow those full of hatred and negativity to thrive in their own world, and allow us to thrive in ours.

I came out of the theatre feeling a million times better then I did when I walked into the theatre.

This morning I checked my email. I received more complaints, which I decided to rectify with no bitterness because it is the right thing to do. I then received an email from my publisher (for those who don’t know I am a published author). She sent me a quote that is as follows.

"I Have Complete Control Over My Own Thoughts… You can find yourself in an endless loop where you explain that you feel negative because of the negative behavior of someone else. But if, instead, you take control of your own emotions and you think an improved thought because it feels better to do so, you will discover that no matter how the negative trend got started, you can turn it around. You have no real control of what anyone else is doing with their Vibration (or with their actions, for that matter), but you have complete control over your own thoughts, Vibrations, emotions, and point of attraction."
Excerpted from The Vortex on 8/31/09
Our Love
Esther (Abraham and Jerry)

So lets try to fill our Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes in a year with love.

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