Will you stay or will you go is not the question

After briefly being engaged in a conversation about my cousin’s LS venture and realizing that Christmas is just around the corner, I remembered my Christmas bazaar hopping almost years ago for our very own LS project. We sold Veo, the healthy hot chocolate powdered drink, back then.

Initial bazaars were a struggle for us since we still were not sure how to effectively sell our Christmas in a cup. I remember the meager sales and failed gimmicks for the first few ones. But as time went by, Veo’s bazaar tour became a success and proved to be a very profitable venture for us all. A success probably nipped in the bud too early as to this day, people are still looking for Veo. Oh well, let’s see if a Veo revival is possible.

Recently, I have realized how my brief bazaar sales experience could be used as a metaphor for meeting people. You might think it’s kind of stupid since selling does include meeting people but just please trust me that somehow, this shall make sense.

The ability to discriminate and separate potential buyers from plain window-shoppers was a definite asset during the bazaar. Hold your negative thoughts there as discriminate in this situation just simply means to differentiate people. Of course, I wanted to use a stronger word so that it’ll last longer.

Let’s face it, not everyone will buy your product. That’s why we have target consumers. Thus, such knowledge of a consumer’s potential of buying allows you to adapt your handling of him/her. You hard sell to those who buy and just smile to those who are just there to look around. In a way, it optimizes your efforts and eventually your profits. More for more and less for less.

How does this then relate to meeting people? Simple, discriminate and segregate. It may sound rude at first but it may help you understand better how relationships work.

Just like customers, people come and go in our lives. They look around and stop for a while but nobody has guarantee that they’ll stay. Investing in those who’ll stay seems easier and more fulfilling since these are individuals who we’ll be with for the rest of our lives. Following the bazaar salesman metaphor, we should really make effort for these people because they deserve such effort. They deserve nothing but the best because they chose to stay.

However, some people are meant to leave us, those who just wandered around and got to know you probably a little well. But eventually, they will go because they are meant to leave us. And we should not feel cheated or whatsoever because there was never a guarantee in the first place.

At this point, I’ve realized that I’d probably need to change a portion of the bazaar salesman analogy and say that we should make as much effort in getting know individuals we meet whether they are meant to stay with us or leave us. At first, we might feel cheated by those who have left us but we should just cherish and be grateful for the moments we spent with them. Let us not dwell on the reasons s/he left but celebrate the reasons and moments s/he stayed with us.

People will leave and people will stay. And we have no control who leaves and stays. The important thing is that we always feel blessed for the experiences we have shared with them regardless of their presence or absence.