Have you ever treasured a formal dress and found it out of fashion? Or find in the depths of the closet a box of expensive sweets that have been waiting in the wings for so long that they have gone bad? Find out why we don’t use what we’ve bought and how to deal with it.
Are there things in your wardrobe that you haven’t worn in over a year? What about the ones that still have the tags on them? Do you have beautiful candles in your house that you have never lit? And a bottle of expensive cognac “for the New Year” or a porcelain service for a “special occasion”?
Chances are you answered yes to at least one question.
TED speaker Gillian Dunn tells how she brought back a stunningly beautiful tin candle from her vacation in Mexico City, but decided she had to wait for “the right opportunity” to light it. I put it in the closet and forgot about the souvenir.
Remembering the candle a couple of years later, Dunn decided that “that moment” had come, but it turned out that during this time the beautiful blue candle turned into a shapeless mass. That is, she did what she was supposed to – she melted. But this happened without the participation of its owner.
Dunn decided that day that she wouldn’t let that happen again.
We’ll wear this dress when… We get these glasses as soon as… But what if that “as soon as” doesn’t come at all?
What do all the things that we save have in common? It’s simple: we think they are special. And this feeling does not allow us to tear off the price tag from the sweater, set the table with an elegant tablecloth or pour expensive cognac into glasses.
Perhaps you think that this jewelry is “too festive”, it is very different from what you wear every day. So what?
If you put it back in the box, most likely, after a while, the same thing will happen to it as to the candle. It will fall into disrepair (in this case, it will go out of fashion, lose its luster, or simply you will not like it).
Dunn believes that there are two attitudes behind this behavior: “I don’t have enough things” and “I don’t have enough myself.”
The first is most likely rooted in times of total scarcity, when it seemed to people that by making a large supply of all kinds of things, they could survive difficult times. That era is long gone, but thinking remains.
With the second installation, everything is somewhat more complicated. We lack the confidence that we are valuable in ourselves. And it seems to us that things add this value to us. Standing at the checkout with a basket full of clothes, dishes or electronics, we think: well, now, with all this, we will become more significant, more important.
But something happens on the way from the cash register to the house. The impulse that convinced us to pay for one more thing mysteriously disappears. We bring home a purchase and just forget about it “until better times.”
Yes, we promise ourselves that sooner or later these times will come. We’ll wear this dress when… We get these glasses as soon as… But what if that “as soon as” doesn’t come at all?
Today is already “special enough” to take out of the closet all those beautiful things that we treasured.
Gillian Dunn works as a nurse in the emergency department and knows for sure: none, none of her patients planned to end up in intensive care …
Sad but true: life can change at any moment, automatically turning our “someday” into “never.”
Dunn does not call for the use of all things at every opportunity. Not at all. But she offers to create your own life – to make it beautiful and rich and enjoy it. Today now.
Today is already “special enough” to take out of the closet all those beautiful things that we took care of and use them for their intended purpose. After all, their purpose is to please us.
Light a candle and admire its flame, do not let it melt ingloriously in a box. And give up the habit of putting your life on hold. Otherwise, one day it will also simply melt, and we will not notice it.