Have you ever heard of the 🛒Shopping Cart Theory? It is based on the idea that a person’s response to an empty 🛒shopping cart reveals character. Think about it. No one forces you to return the 🛒shopping cart to the cart corral. It’s not illegal to abandon your cart, hop in your car, and move on. There are no 💰fines for leaving your cart right where you finish with it. No 🎁rewards for returning it. Whether or not to put up the 🛒shopping cart is your choice.
The theory suggests that the 🛒shopping cart choice is a litmus test for whether or not people can self-govern. It’s the classic choice of 😀good or ☠️evil. Doing the right thing. Putting up the dang cart or letting someone else do it for us.
If I said that I’m the type of human who puts up the 🛒cart every time, I’d be lying. When the ☀️weather cooperates, I’m putting up the cart. I’ll even enjoy a walk to the cart corral. If it’s pouring ☔️rain, I’ll shove it in the nearest empty spot to my 🚗vehicle and shift the wheels just enough to hopefully hold it in there until someone else comes out in the 🌧rain to get my cart. ❄️Snow? I’m going to slide that cart next to the curb and hop into my 🔥heated car. Repeat that same response with simply ☃️frigid temperatures.
I know exactly what that says about me. I’m taking the easy way out. 😳I’m counting on someone else to do something for me. 😔I’m skipping a simple responsibility that I choose to avoid because conditions didn’t suit me. OUCH!😬
Before you 🤬curse me, I have found a solution to my issues. Since I know that I have a tendency to be a big 👶🏻baby in less than ideal ⛈weather conditions, I find parking spots as close to the cart corrals as I can get, which guarantees that I’ll put up that cart. I like to do the right thing. 🥰I also work to find logical solutions to problems. 🤔This serves both of those purposes. Check!✅
Some will argue that employees are 💵paid to get the carts. While that might be true, I bet those employees don’t love trudging through heavy 🌧rains or deep ❄️snow to gather carts from all over the parking lot. What’s wrong with helping folks out a little bit? Whenever I ditch the cart, I feel guilty. 😞I just disrespected someone by making an already tough job even worse. Not cool!☹️
This isn’t really about 🛒shopping carts, though. It begs the question of what we do when we think no one is 👀looking. That question leads to another. What guides us? Maybe we’re rooted in the idea of ❤️loving our neighbors. Perhaps we hope to spread 🎉kindness. There’s the notion of serving 💞others. There’s also the idea of serving self with no regard for others. ❌We probably fall somewhere on that giant spectrum. We can all do better. 💯
What if…we put up the 🛒cart? It’s not really that difficult, is it? You can even take it a step further. Put up a 🛒cart that someone else left out sometimes. You’ll be glad you did.💖
sharing the stairs 