Week 25. Owning

Coming back to the grounding, tangible topics - I lost my jacket. The same one for the second time. As a person who does not lose things in life, I took it pretty seriously to heart and it started a thought train about owning things. So prepare your tickets, we’re going for a ride here.

DISCLAIMER: I am well aware that people view their belongings differently so my analogies may not resonate with a lot of people, still, I hope my thoughts on the subject might be useful while considering our relationship with the things we own.

For me, owning things always meant that I get to use them, yes, obviously, but also that I have to take care of them, maintain them so that they would last long. Throughout my life I took great pride in doing it well, if I may say so myself, so losing something means to me that I didn’t take well enough care of my belongings, which means that I disappointed myself. As a recovering perfectionist I do try to treat this situation with humor and compassion for myself, although it’s not easy. On the other hand, this situation also offered a myriad of thoughts about what it means to own something, what relationship we tend to have with the things we own and why some people love their cars at times more than the most important people in their lives, and some forget even the most routine check-ups. For me, owning something means, yes, taking care of it but also trying to understand what it needs to function the best (right oil for the car, regular filter cleaning for the washing machine, newest updates for the computer, you get the jist of it), using and maintaining it in a way it would wear down the least and work the best. As an adult, a person needs to have and maintain quite a few gadgets that might require expensive repair if not used correctly or carefully so it only makes sense to figure out the least harmful ways of usage, maybe get a little adventures and to read the instructions before using it. In this humorous way I am just trying to offer to look through the ways we treat our things, it may reveal much more to us than we expect. Or might not. It may just prove, yet again, that things in our lives are just tools we utilize for our own use without batting a lash about what it means or what effect it has for others. One way or another, at times it’s good to check up with ourselves and see how consciously we life our days. Even the most mundane ones.

Have a great week of findings.