Back home and still chairless.
I don't mind not having the chairs that we were looking at, as we have so many other things to spend the money on with the kitchen renovation starting next month. Rather than a "holiday impulse buy" that normally comes with buyers remorse, I'd rather take the time and have a look around the second hand sites to see if we can find something more suitable. Sure, these particular chairs don't come up very often, but I am quite certain that with a little patience, we will find what we want and it will come with the added benefit of "having to work for it".
We value what takes effort to obtain, which it is so easy for those kids that "get everything" to become spoilt and not appreciate what they have. In general, it isn't the child's fault this happens, which means it isn't completely the Spoilt adult's fault either, but at some point, an adult has to take responsibility for their behavior, even if the cause behind it, wasn't their fault at all.
After arriving back into our home city, we went to the sister antique shop to have a look at another pair of chairs from the same set, but even though they were in similar condition, my wife was far less keen on them. What had happened was that once back home, the holiday impulses had faded and her more rational self was thinking about whether they were worth it. This is less about the price of them, than how with a different mental frame, she valued them. The "holiday buy" feeling had been replaced by the reality of daily life, where splurging is not the norm.
In some ways, it is like the adage of "not shopping while hungry", because you will end up making more impulsive decisions and buying more foods that are less healthy. Shopping when the hunger isn't on the mind, means being more rational, so rather than making the quick decision on something to eat now, planning for what is to be eaten later kicks in, improving the quality of the food bought. At least in theory.
It is also that sense of holiday FOMO, isn't it? You are relaxed, away from home, already spending a bit more than usual and not sure if you will "pass this way again" - at the time, it makes sense to spend a little bit more on something that is unique, special.
But, how many times do you get home and actually appreciate those souvenirs that were bought? The magic of the moment is gone, the holiday feeling forgotten, the reasons to purchase no longer a factor - it just becomes another thing that is kept for some obligatory amount of time, before being donated to charity.
Sure, these particular chairs would not be quite the same as that, but the buying process that goes into them is similar, especially if there is no story behind them. Next week for example, my wife and I are going to an old town area to stay for a couple nights, for the first time in 6 years. We have made two or three overnight trips before, but this is the first time we get two nights in a row. There are a few antique stores there too, so if we were to have found the chairs then and bought them, there would have been more of a story to go with it, a little romance perhaps that would be carried with the chairs.
That story becomes a "value addition" to the purchase, imbuing it with some kind of personal magic, making it "part of us" - and therefore, ours. When we get the sense of ownership, we value it far more. And rather than just the technical "I bought this, it is mine" type of ownership, when there is sentimental ownership factors involved too, it becomes more ours, more valuable, special, scarce. It doesn't matter if it has had 100 owners prior, now it is something different, once we have altered its profile with our own feelings.
And this is why I think it is so important for people to earn what they own, where there is some work performed to possess it, so it doesn't come too easily. For my wife, choosing not to get the chairs will hopefully not be the end of it, as what I hope she will do is start doing the work to have them. and I don't mean earning the money to buy them, as she already does that, but actually doing the research on what she wants, scouring sites to find examples, testing and failing with some, haggling prices and finally, purchasing something that will never be perfect, but will be perfect for her, because she played an active and invested role to own them.
While this will often mean paying more for items, the benefit of this process is that items aren't bought as often and are for the most part, not "disposable" because there is a little piece of us within them and as such, they are valued and appreciated, cared for and protected as "part of the family".
There is a lot of psychology in purchasing decisions and what I think would value everyone, is doing some exploration into what processes we follow, so that when we make decisions to buy, we make the decisions for the types of items we will appreciate down the track. It is not just the price we pay that gives something the value, it is also how we value it throughout its lifecycle with us as the owner.
A lot of consumerism like a TV has a depreciating return to zero, where we actually start to "resent" the TV for not being adequate technology. For antiques however, they tend to go up in value the longer we have them, not just their worth to someone else - but our sentimental attachment we have to them also. This means that at some point, we don't throw anything away and replace it with new, because we have a home filled with everything we need and want to keep as it is - Not because we have to, but because we want to.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
