We Might Already Have What We Need
Just a few days after the glittery New Year’s Eve ball dropped as everybody was lacing-up their tennis shoes and heading to work out, I overheard a stranger say that she’d made it all the way through 2024 without buying any clothes. Three-hundred-sixty-five days without an apparel purchase. Impressive. Not a pair of socks. Not a sports bra. Not a trendy jacket or a pair of jeans.
While eavesdropping, I heard how she ambitiously dug into what she already had and in so doing found all sorts of combinations that made her closet feel brand new. She said she saved a ton of money and that it sort of turned into a game. It was a puzzle as fun as it was thrifty. She found the process “grounding.” The rediscovery, the repurposing, the reimagining of things that still had lots to give created a palpable shift in her. In the strangest way it helped her stabilize.
The concept of finding the new within the old would not let me rest.
As I sat typing in my office hours later— books cram-packed in floor-to-ceiling shelving behind me, three knee-high stacks of not-read-yets on the rug beside my desk—I wondered what that discipline might look like if applied to my Achilles heel of spending. It used to be stilettos. Now the thing I can’t seem to find a way to say no to is the promise of a book.
Catchy titles, interesting covers, a seal of approval from an acquaintance (“I could not put this down!”), a pointed recommendation from a friend (“go get The Overstory now”), a blustery and sometimes annoying blurb . . . everything about the potential of what’s inside the jacket sucks me in. I am lured by all types of prose: innovative ideas, cutting edge get-betters, novel novels, collections of essays, writing that takes a fresh look at time-worn things. Hot-off-the-press publications hook me with their possibility. So I purchase. And they pile.
As I twist around in my chair to survey the titles of works snuggled tightly side-by-side in rows behind me, I realize that whatever it is I’m looking for, I might already have.
Perhaps it would behoove me to stop buying and re-read.
For years I’ve tried to review The Inner Game of Tennis on an annual basis. It’s a book full of a bunch of things I’d rather not forget, so I try to open it yearly in attempt to ensure I don’t. The Inner Game has helped me become a better tennis player by impacting tangible behaviors like loosening my grip on the racket, swinging softer and saying aloud “bounce hit” as I see the action happen in real time, but I don’t re-read it to get better at tennis. Tennis is just the vehicle the teachings ride in on. “Inner Game” ideas infiltrate the corners of my thinking —the way vital books, whatever it is they happen to be about, usually do.
And kind of like the story of Zacchaeus from the Bible, something distinct jumps out at me every time I dive back in.
Essential writing does that. It tends to meet us where we are and hit us where we need it. The messages delivered in good books are evergreen.
And yet, I pass by all they have to offer every day, as if they have already given all they have.
It feels like Christmas--minus a looming credit card statement—as I peruse my shelves. Some of the authors and titles, I haven’t thought about in years. As I randomly pull the treasures and thumb through the aging pages, highlights and stars in the margins take me back in time and ignite my curiosity anew. Giddy with the thought of all that I’ve had in the palm of my hand but have been overlooking, I make a pact to do this year’s shopping here, in the warehouse I already own.