Stop saving stuff ‘for best’
Wear the fancy shoes, use the good china, drink the expensive wine.
Audio version (by me) below:
When I thought I might cark it last year, one thing really annoyed me (just the one): that I would never get to wear the fantastic boots I’d bought myself six months before. I’d been saving them for a ‘special occasion’, see, yet no occasion had seemed special enough – so I’d never worn them. They were still nestled in their box, carefully wrapped in delicate tissue paper. At the time, short of shuffling up and down the chemo ward in them, it seemed as though I may have missed my chance.
It reminded me of a conversation that I’d had with an ex-boss once. A client had gifted him a bottle of champagne worth thousands of pounds, years previously, and he still had it. During that time he’d gotten married, been promoted, moved house, and had two kids. He wondered what the hell kind of event could possibly qualify as ‘special’ when none of those had? “I despise that bottle,” he said. “I want to drink it on a random Tuesday and be done with it.”
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Why do we indulge in such madness?
For lots of reasons! Perhaps you were raised in a home where certain things were kept ‘for best’ and it skewed your perception of achievement and likeability depending on who or what was deemed worthy.
Money can play a big role. For those without lots of spare cash – or those who didn’t have it in the past – it makes sense that a higher value is placed on items that have been saved up for or that are worth a lot of money (even when gifted). Particularly when you cannot afford to replace them.
Then there’s the thorny issue of worthiness – believing that you don’t deserve to look or feel good. Even if you originally purchased whatever it is for yourself. (Maybe you bought it on the proviso that ‘in the future’ you’ll deserve it.) Items can take on the mantle of a reward that you don’t believe that you’ve earned. And, seeing as you constantly move the goalposts of ‘success’ anyway, the reward always stays just out of reach.
But I want to wear my fancy boots
I have kept some clothes ‘for best’ for so long, wearing them only once or twice, that, by the time I figure an event is ‘special’ enough, whatever it is doesn’t fit anymore or has gone out of style. The thought of kicking the bucket and my partner finding these beautiful dresses and shoes still with the bloody labels on was mortifying. What a waste of money, time and emotional investment – and there is emotional investment here.
We ‘save’ things for an undefined event happening at some indeterminate time in the future because we believe that life will be better and more beautiful then – that we will be better and more beautiful then. We see using these things, and, in doing so, celebrating life, as carrying an inherent risk. What if we scuff the shoes, break the china, spill the fizz? What if we lose our way and get our hearts broken? These small material things speak of greater fears, greater vulnerabilities.
Yet surely the bigger risk is to run out of time? To open up a cupboard full of missed opportunities at the end?
THIS IS IT. This is the one beautiful life that we have been given. Fuck the noise, fuck the comparisons, fuck the box-ticking, fuck what anyone else thinks is an achievement. We are here. We are alive. We are surviving. We are managing the best we goddamn can given the state of the world. And for that, we deserve it all – we deserve the pleasure with the pain. We deserve to slip our feet into beautiful boots that make us feel dazzling. We deserve to drink the good champagne on any given day, just because we want to. We deserve to eat from the fine china because scratching it with our knives and forks will tell a story of food shared with people we love.
The occasions will become special because we have used these things, not the other way around. They become ‘best’ because we have taken the risks. As Self Esteem said: “All the days that you get to have are big”.
Just One More Thing…
Items with an emotional connection are different – things you save for posterity rather than ‘for best’. It makes sense that you wouldn’t want to wear your dead mum’s bracelet for fear of losing it. I say this from personal experience. My mum died during my second year of university. Throughout my entire third year, I insisted on wearing her bangle whenever I went out-out. My friends would audibly groan if I rocked up wearing it because it undoubtedly meant that a good portion of the evening would be spent on our hands and knees looking for it on a sticky nightclub floor amongst discarded cigarette butts. Eventually, someone gently took me aside, explained how the bracelet was ruining everyone’s time at university and insisted that I never wear it again. I’ve never worn it since – and I still have it, which I’m very happy about.
*Exceedingly modest reminder that I have written eight bestselling mental-health books which have been translated into dozens of languages. I’ve also written a book about the TV show Friends which would make a delightful gift for any Friends obsessives. All are available to buy online or at your local bookshop.
Am a great believer in this. I spritz on Tom Ford cologne just for Zoom calls – it’s not for best, it’s for ME.
LOVE this! 🙌🏼