I keep loading up things to buy but I honestly have no need to. I’ve got an iPhone and a MacBook but I’m looking at PCs or some cheap android when I’ve already spent a lot more than any of those items. I don’t know why I keep doing this, and I have things that are worth so much more than what I’m looking at. But my brain tells me life would be a little better if I had those things. It’s so strange because I know my life won’t be, and instead I have many more things o could do on what I have but I still start searching over and over again.
I tell myself things like having a dedicated device would move me to do more intentionally. But if would also increase the hurdle to get things published. And that’s not the hurdle I wanted to make.
So instead of searching some more, I’m writing this, as a directed action to make more. Instead of doom scrolling and watching more tech reviews about boosted productivity, I should just be productive. Then there would be no need for me to actually search. It would be like when I was in school again, where my time was focused on getting my work out, in the least likely of situations.
I was reading Atomic Habits like all other 30 something year olds, and I remembered a good number of things about myself and the goals I had set out for myself to do. They’re not difficult things to achieve, but I do remember wanting to clear space as a whole. There are things I was hoping to get better at, like coding and building tech items on my own. But they’ve since fallen on the wayside, because it’s just a smaller bit of what I really want to do. Maybe more concretely, it’s not who I really want to be.
Perhaps the need for my personal novelty is a big part. I feel the need to have items from the past, to retain memories one way or another. It’s fun, but it means I have a lot of random things that I could do without 80% of the time.
I was thinking if it would be helpful to have a habit that stops me from buying things. One of the funniest moments from the keyboard phase was when I could just memorise my three credit cards, because I was so used to writing them in. (Different stores would accept different cards, so I had to try all three.)
I feel a little more settled about me as a person, after doing some deeper reflection about why I buy when I buy. The question I am now asking myself is Who is buying it? Is it the person running away from the immediate work and decision making I ought to be doing? Or is it someone who has worked really hard and wants just a break? Or is it a spoiled brat who wants something new and novel yet again? All those questions about the person helps me a lot more. I don’t have the time to waste, pretending to be someone else, or feeding the spoiled brat who isn’t growing up to match the actual person I am. I will learn how better to embrace myself in the things and the material wants.
In the latest episode of Diggnation, Kevin Rose shared about how he lost everything when his house burned down in the Californian fires. The things he wanted to keep the most were the cards from his kids, the woodwork his dad made for him when he was growing up, things that were relational. He was ok-ish about the comic books that were burned, the wine collection, the tech. His conclusion was he might have gone too far in buying and keeping stuff, which made his decision making in the current rebuild a lot more steady. He knew what items he had barely touched, and maybe those things did not deserve another purchase. He could do without it.
I would like to think about material possessions that way, without a fire burning down my house. There are definitely things I have not touched in forever, and all the projects I wanted to do some day. But time’s running out on things in some way or another. I need space for my baby girl to grow up and own her own stuff. There’s a lot that I could give up, if put to the Fire Test. But I still hold on to them.
I will aim to start working on them in the current year, and to start, I will actually tell stories about them here. It gives me reason to write, and also I can say goodbye to some items, one at a time.
Some simple resolutions, as we start the second month of the year.
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