AUGUST 2004 IN
RICK ASTER’S WORLD
Years ago, I caught a glimpse of the Tae Bo infomercial on television. It made enough of an impression that, two years later when the video set became available as a clearance item, I bought it for a fourth of its original price.
I still have not watched the tapes all the way through. They sit idle on the shelf, but if I ever think of discarding them, the Tae Bo infomercial is still there in my head to remind me of what good exercise I could be having. It is as if I have a commercial on the shelf next to the tapes to make sure I don’t take the tapes away.
Do you have a television in your closet? I’ve seen people who do — literally — but do you have an imaginary television that plays commercials to tell you why you need to keep the things you don’t use? It seems that most of us do.
The commercial ideas that come out of this virtual television mislead us by speaking in the most optimistic terms about the possible value of a product, while making no mention at all of the cost of owning it. A box of dried clay isn’t just high-priced dust, it’s, “Ready to be formed into angelic action figures! All it takes is a little initiative!” Those clothes that don’t fit proclaim proudly, “You’ll have something to wear if you ever gain weight again!”
The cost of owning things is more than most people imagine. Actually, most people would rather pretend that it costs nothing to keep things — but the economic costs such as rent, utilities, and cleaning can easily be $1 a year for a simple item such as a sweater or a camera. (Of course, if you have so much stuff that you have to pay for storage space outside your home for any of it, your costs are much higher.) If you wouldn’t pay $1 to buy clothing that doesn’t fit or an appliance you can’t use, then it doesn’t make any more sense to spend the same amount of money to keep such items.
If the economic costs of owning things are enough to give you pause, other costs, ones that can’t be readily measured in money terms, can be even greater. The more different things you own, the easier it is to lose things and the harder it is to find anything. Worse, anything you own that you don’t use complicates your life and weighs on you in a way that makes it harder to do anything, and harder to focus on what’s actually happening in your life.
Chances are, many of the things you have in your closet are no more valuable than the empty space you could have if you took them away. A plentiful supply of empty storage space means you’re ready for action — if you decide to do something new, you have a place to put it. You can counter the commercial thoughts that live in your closet by devising a similar message about empty closet space: “Instant storage! Ready for whatever comes next!”
Next month: Time Is Money
Fish Nation Information Station | Rick Aster’s World | Rick Aster