When ‘Stop Waiting, Start Living’ Keeps Showing Up as ‘Stop Waiting, Start Buying’
What is it about physical items that just feel like they can solve anything from discomfort to desire to expressing some version of ourselves we aren’t yet quite convinced of? It might not hit you for every aspect of your life, but when it comes to the “stop waiting, start living” idea, this comes on strong for me, and in a fugue state I scroll Nordstrom’s anniversary sale, or look for what new skincare I might ‘need’ from my favorite dermatologist influencer, or try to find just the right notebook that will finally organize every random impulse to document and record my life and my thoughts with an element of such utter precision that you’d weep to see it.
Touring Kauai by helicopter: Worth every penny.
I can’t be the only one. And I know I’m not, because how could online retail returns have doubled in just 4 years? Or how could we continue to have millions of YouTube videos preaching the power of decluttering and minimalism even as cluttercore and maximalism are supposedly the trending thing now? We just keep hitting the buy button thinking that this will be the moment that will turn our lives into the version we’ve vision-boarded into perfection. See the following:
This handbag (and I don’t even actually like handbags—I’m more of a ‘broccoli-rubber-band-around-your-ID-and-credit-card’ kind of girl) will turn me into the erudite and worldly cool girl I know I really am on the inside. Guilty.
This notebook will solve my mental churn because I’m going to turn into one of those meticulous life-documentarians, who has lists of fantastic restaurants and also thoughtfully written life accounts for every moment of personal history all at her fingertips at the ready any time you might ask her for it—just ask her! Guilty.
And even: this popsicle mold will turn my summer from a mental blur of “it’s too hot, let’s go floating” and “now it’s so rainy, what should we do?” and “I can’t wait for fall, I’m over how dry the mountains look” and the various family meetups and outdoor food truck festivals into a slow, leisurely summer of savoring local fruits in their frozen form while sitting on my deck at night, looking up at the stars. Guilty, guilty, guilty.
2014, Dublin: Close encounter with an H&M blazer, which was sure to turn me into a literary genius
The worst part is, I know this. I think you know this. But something in us gets commandeered into believing that this Madewell sweater is going to be the thing that makes us feel the way we want to feel, have the life setup we want to have, and overall just have things the way we want them. I wish a sweater had that kind of pervasive and all-encompassing power, but I haven’t found this to be the case.
I do think there’s a lot to be said for the way that changing your external situation can help shift your internal one—enclothed cognition is an interesting theory you can play with to try it out for yourself, or even just rearrange your space by removing from view anything that you don’t really love. But if you’re anything like me, it’s such an easy crutch to pick up when we should actually be doing other things that will much more significantly change both our lives and our levels of satisfaction. Things like actually saving up to book flights to the country you’ve always dreamed of instead of directing your money toward shopping for the things you could wear there… and thus not having enough money for the trip. Or just planting the live basil you bought for that one recipe and seeing if you can keep it going instead of buying an Aerogarden—maybe you don’t even like gardening, no matter how small the scale, so you’re better off just supporting your local farmers every Saturday at the market.
As I write this, I think Yeah, it’s like we should just be going with the MVP version of whatever we’re actually wanting. ‘Minimum viable product’ doesn’t have to stay in the realm of startups—why not use it for life? The tricky part is the second half of my thought here: whatever we’re actually wanting. This is where the real effort needs to come in. Because hitting the buy button is the easy way to circumvent finding out what’s underneath whatever triggered the ‘need’ to purchase the thing. As annoying as the advice can be to put something you want on a ‘to buy’ list and then wait at least 24 hours, it’s actually very good guidance. It’s always jarring to me how much my mental state shifts in even that short of a timeframe.
Exhibit A
I have a conference in Sonoma coming up, and when it was announced, I truly didn’t feel that I had the ‘right’ clothes to wear, given the venue and who will be there. So I did go out and buy some professional-looking pants that won’t wrinkle because I have a similar pair but they wrinkle like crazy, which is not the look. Ok, no problem there. But then I started thinking: I won’t have the right shoes for these pants. Yes, it’s being billed as a ‘casual’ event, but I can’t go with just some clean and forgettable, low-profile sneakers! Who will even talk to someone wearing those?! And shopping I went, clicking and scrolling and hello these white Coach loafers are on sale and aren’t even $150?! Gorgeous. I should buy those. I could wear them all the time! (Oh yes, in the mountain town I live in, where I work from home and where friend meetups and nights out revolve around breweries, floating, camping, and outdoor concerts.) I had an inkling I was maybe not making the best decisions, so I left the tab open on my phone and promised myself I’d come back to it before the sale ended. Two days later, I didn’t even open the tab—just saw it as I closed others out—and clicked the X in the corner. I couldn’t imagine wearing those shoes now. Yes, they were a beautiful leather, and they definitely looked very chic on the model, but really. Where would I wear them? Perfect for the conference, but totally out of sync with my actual, lived life. The thought of walking into my favorite coffee shop in blinding white loafers while everyone else is in Tevas and Bedrocks literally made me snort my coffee. Who even was I when I was thinking I’d buy those?
Well, I was panicked. And in a state of self-doubt. These are thing things that can get us. I felt like I wouldn’t fit in, and that I wasn’t actually the kind of person who’d attend something that felt so ‘fancy’ and I very nearly pulled the trigger on the easiest fix in the book. But what do I actually want? Not just as far as this specific event, but even larger than that? What I actually value is having a minimal wardrobe that works for almost anything because while I truly love beautiful things, I don’t want to have to solve a style puzzle every morning—I want things to work together without having to think about it. And I also value spending money on experiences, especially if the tradeoff is having shoes in my closet that only work in very specific and very infrequent situations. I’d much rather spend $150 on multiple rounds of amazing burritos with my favorite people, or put that toward a plane ticket, than wear white loafers that end up making me feel insecure (are they looking at my loafers? do they think I’m a colossal ass without even knowing anything about me?).
What the H&M blazer money went to, instead: entrance to the Cliffs of Moher and seeing what, apparently, Wallace Stevens never saw, despite his poem The Irish Cliffs of Moher
Anyway, it seems that late summer, early fall—more than any other time of the year—is the time I tend to repeat this pattern (conferences aside). Sales are on, winter is coming, and I fantasize about life where I just go barefoot and wear breezy things as I travel from country to country. And because I not currently a full-time world traveler, I am also mentally dressing myself for the upcoming winter. Because of this, I have two sweaters I need to return because my winter-preparation self told me that I need more layers—and a non-hoodie option to go with my pajamas when I’m cold! But you know what? I think my winter self has survived many a storm before, and she’ll survive this winter just as well. And all that money and all the time spent looking for these unnecessary things can go into my travel fund, where (for me) they belong.