your permission slip: buy the thing!
I know you have one. Everyone has one. It’s… The Thing You Don’t Buy.
Maybe it’s the thing you really want to buy. Maybe it’s the thing you really should buy. Maybe it’s even the thing you NEED to buy. But you just. don’t. buy it.
You can afford it. You know where to find it. Other people buy it all the time. But you? You don’t.
Mine is razor blades. I don’t think I’ve bought razor blades since before Christmas. My little cartridge holder looks like Tiny Tim’s Christmas stocking.
I took a deliberately terrible picture to make you feel sorry for my razors.
Now, this is not to say I don’t buy other things that go in my medicine cabinet. I do! I buy far more things than I will ever need or possibly even want.
This is my medicine cabinet.
Also, apparently, the cleavage I never knew I had.
But I don’t buy razor blades, which means I don’t shave my legs, which means I don’t wear skirts. Or shorts. Or those cute little romper things that People Who Are Not Me seem to have by the dozen.
Today, we will unpack this. When we are done, I will give you a permission slip, because you are a very good and deserving person.
why we don’t buy the thing
For any given thing that we want to buy / should buy / need to buy, there are a whole host of surface reasons we don’t do so. “Razor blades are expensive!” for example. Or “But the PLANET!” These are the things I tell myself when I walk past the shaving aisle of the drug store, nonchalantly pretending it doesn’t exist.
Those are the things we tell ourselves.
But then there are the real reasons, the ones we don’t tell ourselves. The ones we try very hard to avoid telling ourselves.
In my case, usually, my razor drama comes down to me vs. other people. We spend money for them. We don’t spend money for me. Sheesh.
You will notice that I have a mortgage payment’s worth of perfume in that medicine cabinet. That Tatcha skincare regimen didn’t come cheap either. This is perfectly justified in my mind because, somewhere in my subconscious, I decided that perfume is for other people. It’s a civic responsibility. (“You gotta smell good, right?!”) And the skincare? “I need that! For my selfies on Instagram!” (Note: I have not put a selfie on Instagram since 2017.)
Those things are for other people. But my legs? That’s just for me. I don’t leave my house. Nobody sees it, so who cares?*
(* Please notice how my subconscious mind refers to me as, literally, “nobody”. I am the person I spend the most time with. I am the one responsible for keeping me alive. I am the one whose narrative I must hear every day of my life. But I’m “nobody”. Charming.)
This is a subconscious pattern I’ve put in place, a message I sold myself sometime back. The message is sitting there, taking up space, hogging the microphone of my mind…
…leaving me with enough perfume to open a shop, but wearing sweatpants in July because I don’t want to spend any more time with my hirsute self than necessary.
going under the surface – here are some of the usual suspects
There are a great, great, great number of real under-the-surface reasons we don’t buy the thing. Here are some of the usual suspects:
1. we don’t know what’s normal.
If we are in any way neurodiverse (autistic, ADHD, etc), or we’re introverted and don’t have a gang of besties and never have, or if we were simply raised by wolves, we often have no conception of what normal is. How often are you supposed to buy razor blades? My father once bragged to me that he used the same blade for 8 months. Is that normal? I have no idea.
(Note: He shaved his face. I shave my pretty much everything. Somehow I still think I’m supposed to make an 8-pack of razor blades last 64 months. That’s the length of time it takes an elephant to birth three babies.)
If we didn’t grow up normal, we don’t know how long our countertop spray is supposed to last, we don’t know how often we’re supposed to wash our car, and we don’t know when we’re supposed to get a haircut. The only messages we see are marketing messages, and we know they’re a little biased. Practically speaking, we know less than nothing.
2. we don’t think we deserve it.
This is a sneaky one, because it rarely shows up verbatim. Most of us don’t think the actual words, “I don’t deserve this countertop spray”. We don’t think, “I don’t deserve a haircut.” We think other things that are far more subversive. We think:
“I should make it last a little longer.”
“I should just use soap and water.”
“Maybe there’s some vinegar thing I could find on Pinterest.”
Most of us, most of the time, have a VERY long list of things we think we don’t deserve. We don’t bring those thoughts to the surface, though, because if we did that, their absurdity would out itself. Subconscious ain’t having none of that nonsense.
3. we haven’t adjusted to inflation.
I have a theory that what we think is a fair price for literally everything on earth is the amount it cost when we were somewhere between 14 and 21. For the rest of their lives, that’s what it’s supposed to cost, and anything more than that is extortion.
When I was a teenager in the nineties, my cousin Rob bought a Chrysler Neon for $9,999. In my head, that’s what cars cost. Like, maybe a super good car costs $15,000. But nice, normal people cars cost just less than ten grand.
The inflation factor affects everything. In my world, McDonald’s combo meals are supposed to cost $3.99. Therefore, when a McDonald’s SANDWICH costs $5.89, my head explodes a little bit.
Razors are supposed to cost five bucks. Minor explosion.
A magazine is supposed to cost $3.50. Minor explosion.
Gyms are supposed to cost $20 a month. Minor explosion.
All those head explosions add up. We can’t handle the cognitive dissonance, so we just bail on the whole proceedings and hope one day we miraculously wake up hairless and McDonald’s is free.
4. we’re afraid of what it will lead to.
Otherwise known by its other names Fear of Success, Self-Sabotage, and Upper Limit Issues, this is a big reason we don’t do most of the things we “want” to do.
If we buy the thing, we’ll use the thing.
If we use the thing, then other things will start happening.
Unfortunately, those other things are often quite scary to us.
In the case of my razors, if I buy razors, I will have to use razors. If I use razors, I might start showing my legs. If I start showing my legs, I might start acting all sexy and shit. And in some part of my mind? Yeah, that’s not okay AT ALL.
If you buy the Hermès scarf for your big birthday, you might start reevaluating your wardrobe. Then you might look classy. Then who knows what scary things might happen?
If you buy the moisturizer, you might start thinking of doing live videos. Then you might start making sales. Then who knows what scary things might happen?
If you buy nice running shoes, you might start running. Then you might meet people. Then you might meet nice, attractive people! Then who knows what scary things might happen? (Spoiler: sex. Sex is what happens.)
5. we haven’t sorted out our priorities.
We live in a culture with far, far, FAR too many options. You know the expression “too much choice is a recipe for madness”? Yeah, it is. And we’re all mad.
Between marketing messages and influencers on social media and our friend-not-friend who’s always on a new kick, the signal-to-noise ratio is beyond ridiculous. Unless we are very, very conscious and self-aware, we don’t have a freaking CLUE what we actually value.
This is just as true for those among us who have a life coach for every day of the week and know their Capital V Values like they know their own names. Maybe we know we value “spontaneity” or “adventure” or “truth”, but we don’t have a clue if we value shaved legs, or artisanal deodorant, or both, or neither.
If I take care of my perfumes well (and I do), I have enough perfume to last me past 90 years old. (Oh, yes. I’ve done the math. See: autism, above.) But I don’t really know if I value it. And the legs issue? I don’t know what I think. I know what Gilette wants me to think. I know what feminism wants me to think. But I don’t know what I, Naomi, think. So I wait, and hope the issue disappears.
This is a recipe for buying arbitrarily, for spending too much on things we don’t even know if we care about, and nothing on what we do.
Bummer, dude.
your permission slip and call to arms.
Now. We can turn this into a group therapy session where we all dig deep into our psyches and do primal chanting and sing Kumbaya. Alternatively, we can use this post as an opportunity to voyeuristically peek into my medicine cabinet while we blithely avoid thinking about our childhood wounds. Either way is good.
But I have an assignment for you.
Do yourself a favor. Do me a favor. Do all the other sensitive little souls on the planet a favor.
Buy the thing.
Here’s your permission slip. You can print it out and download it if you like.
If you’re really brave, leave a comment and let us know what you’re going to buy. You will inspire people to be brave like you.
Update: I bought the thing.
See? All better.
Update Two:
I got over myself and put a selfie on Instagram.
Because screw it.
