I believe our lives have 4 distinct stages: childhood, youth, middle age, and old age.
In shopping terms, that’s desired, acquired, enjoyed, and redeployed.
- Childhood is the first and shortest stage, when our tastes are developed, often by watching Saturday morning commercials. This is where we dream about the stuff we desire.
- In the second stage, we actually start buying stuff. Garage sales are where many of us first feel the thrill of the hunt. This also is the phase when we hear ourselves saying things such as, “Honey, wouldn’t this driftwood clock look perfect over the mantel?” and where we learn that what delights us might not delight others. … During that stage, I saw every garage sale as a shopportunity. But I only bought stuff that passed my I-didn’t-buy-it-and-now-I’m-kicking-myself test. (A friend still regrets walking away from a classic Shroud of Turin beach towel. He’d now be its proud owner if he’d asked himself my question: “Will I be sorry later if I don’t buy this?”) I’m frequently satisfied to simply hold an object, and after 10 minutes in my possession - 10 minutes of owning it - I’ll put it back.
- The third stage, middle age, begins after your treasures are brought home and profoundly displayed. Over time you grow less and less pleased, until the day you hear yourself say, “I’m so tired of that old thing I could scream.” At this point you remove the treasure and store it out of sight.
- By the time we reach old age, our once adored objects are just in the way. That’s when we take an honest look at our stuff and see it for what it really is: garage-sale fodder. The redeployment period signifies a rebirth and begins the cycle again.
The Four Stages of Stuff by Pam Tallman (Orange Coast, November 2015)
