Yesterday I had the great pleasure of attending a live seminar held by The Dog Whisperer, Cesar Milan. This was a sell out event. In fact, as far as I could tell (from checking out the tickets availability on line before the show), it was a sell-out through out the country (Australia) and not just Sydney alone.
My partner and I bought the tickets and we also bought four other tickets at the same time for two couples ~ friends who would be joining us at the show. We did tell them about how scare the tickets were.
Anyway, on the day itself, I found out that two of our friends could/would not be attending as they decided to spend some quality time together. Apparently they had decided this some days or a week prior to the event. Which got me thinking ...
Of course, once we have bought the tickets, it is ours and we have a right to do with them as we wish. That includes using them, giving them away, re-selling them, or not using them. But given the scarcity of the tickets and having heard from other people prior to the show how they were not able to get tickets, it made me wonder if for those of us who have the money, whether it is also not a form of selfishness to buy and not use?
Imagine someone who has lots of money - enough so that they can buy any ticket they fancy. And imagine that they are also rich enough not to use it (i.e. waste it) if they choose as well. Is that person selfish if they buy tickets and then not use it and not try to sell or even give it away, especially if it is to a much desired event where the tickets are very hard to get? And if they do it once and are not considered selfish, how many times would they have to do it before they are considered selfish? Or is it not selfish at all but their right, based solely on the fact that they can afford it and they got the tickets before it was all sold out?
Just a note on the latter point - getting tickets before they are sold out. It often comes down to having money. If you are rich enough, you don't have to worry about buying the tickets early as that is not going to eat into your budget. For others who are not so wealthy and have to consider their purchases carefully, they may not be able to so easily make a decision to buy and hence, oftentimes, will need to put off the purchase till they know they can afford it or have tweaked their finances so that they can afford it. By which time, the tickets may have sold out.
So I come back to my original pondering: is it selfish or not, to just waste the tickets? Put it another way, is it not selfish of any of us to waste anything .. be it tickets, clothing, food, energy, even if we rightfully legally own it?