Elevator Tag vs elevator surfing.

When I was a lad my friends and I would go into the main street of Auckland where the ASB tower had about 10 elevators and twenty floors. We would select one each. The task was to catch someone else in an elevator. So, you would select a floor get out and press someone else’s button. If you caught someone in an elevator they were captured along with their elevator. They were now on your team. We would both then attempt to capture someone else’s elevator and its occupants. The winner was the one who captured the most people. That was harmless fun, until security would catch up with us and send us along the way.

Some years ago, there was a senseless game that became fashionable among thrill seeking teenagers of lesser intelligence. They would climb through the manhole of an elevator and as their elevator was going up, they would jump onto the one going down. Now that was dumb! It was called elevator surfing. They were gambling with their lives as if they had no value. Today they would post their stupidity on Tic Tok or some other place where they can get their 5 seconds of fame.

While we are on the subject of mischievous boys, I heard a story some years ago of some fellas that broke into the local hardware store and swapped the price tags on many items. Valuable things became cheap and cheep things became valuable. Have you noticed how hard it is to get price tags off things today – store owners have learnt their lesson in this department. Let me tell you, the devil has done a lot of price tag swapping with the things of life. He attempts to sell us cheap by having us ignore the things that are of the most value.

I saw some research in 2005 where law abiding people were asked what they would do for a million dollars if they knew they could get away with it. Apparently, the fear of being caught is a valuable deterrent, because an extremely high percentage of people would murder, steal, rape, commit adultery or commit other crimes. You can buy the book new for $193 or second hand for $14 – that says something!

 The book ‘Million Dollar Questions’ is a book with the purpose of finding out exactly what the average person would be willing to do for a million dollars. In witty and sometimes plain ridiculous situations, author John R. Peak poses questions that would make even the most money hungry of us think twice about how much we really care about money. You will be tested to think about the importance of your religion, family, self-respect, personal safety, and your health, just to name a few. This book reveals that there are many things in our lives that are worth much more than a measly million dollars. In an increasingly materialistic society, it is long overdue that you ask yourself: What Would You Do For A Million Dollars? Every time you turn on the television, you see someone doing something to try to win big money. Whether it’s answering trivia questions on a game show, trying to be discovered as an entertainer or eating gross things that you would never normally eat, everyone is after the almighty dollar. So, what would you do for a $million? How secure is your faith on that score?

To illustrate the point of how focused on money we can be, I heard a story of an American gentleman who was friends with an old Indian. They were walking the streets of New York and the Indian stopped and said to his friend, “Listen to that bird.” To which his friend replied, “How can you hear the sound of a bird amidst all this noise?” The Indian said, “It depends on what you are tuned to. Let me demonstrate.” He took a dollar coin from his pocket and flipped it in the air and let it land on the pavement, where it jingled. In the midst of the noise, immediately many eyes were looking in the direction of the jingling coin.

What are you tuned to? In the end it is all going to pass away when this planet is “dissolved with fire.”