I saw the prompt for the week and immediately thought of musical gadgets. I'm a staunch lover of music and there was a period when I tried my best to acquire as many gadgets that could amplify my musical moments in one way or another.
It had always been my wish to acquire numerous musical gadgets and so I started purchasing from the least ostentatious and expensive gadget– a wired earpiece. I bought an earpiece and basically went everywhere with that earpiece.
The love for earpieces grew even stronger when my earpiece saved my mobile device from falling face flat and probably cracking.
Along the line came the earpods and I said to myself 'why not'? I got myself an earpod an earbud, another and another. Then came the loud boom box and finally a headset.
All these musical gadgets lay aimlessly in my room as I couldn't use all of them at the same time. It got to a point where I could leave a particular gadget for over two months without making use of it. They could easily pass for furniture.
The only fun part of it was the fact that I had a variety to choose from. I wore the headset only indoors. On days when I stepped out but didn't feel like carrying so much load, I used my earpods and on days I felt like stressing myself a bit, I used the wired earpiece.
Oblivious to the many times my mom warned me about the danger of loud and constant music, I kept at it. Till one day when I went to visit a friend. I asked about her brother and she said that her brother was admitted into a hospital. Why? Because he was always on his headset and somehow his ear drums burst or something of this sort. This was my cue to change my ways. Funny how I heard this news just a few days after I bought my own headset.
After this news, the knack to purchase new musical gadgets died a natural death, however, I was still in possession of some of the gadgets I owned. Letting go of them was never an option for me. I wanted to keep them forever even if I wasn't going to use them. This story changed when a friend visited and immediately fell in love with my headset.
"Can I carry your headset?" she said with puppy dog eyes.
On a normal day, I would have fought tooth and nail to maintain custody of the headset but this day was different. My subconscious didn't want to let go but then I made a quick analysis. I still had a few other gadgets.
"You can " I responded to my friend. This response certainly came as a shocker and she sprang up with joy.
She was very very happy about the new headset and the excitement on her face was enough for me. I was certain that she was going to make better use of the headset, unlike me who may have unintentionally turned it into furniture.
I took out two lessons from this period; first, human wants are indeed very insatiable. There would always be a yearning for more and more but we get a hang of our expenses when we can say 'no' to ostentatious purchasing and actually mean the no.
Second, why buy and stack up so many gadgets when you clearly aren't making use of them. It certainly hurt to let go of the headset, judging from the fact that they were barely a month old but again, letting go was the best option. It always is.
All images used belong to me and were taken with my mobile device except stated otherwise
Love, Wongi 🌼