Oh

Today I overheard a lady say to another “I just shouldn’t come into town”. The other said “I know, it’s awful isn’t it. I know if I come I’m going to spend money”. The first replied “You just can’t help yourself can you though?”……

Can you? Help yourself? Are we that weak and easily led? I can’t hold myself up as an example of someone who isn’t tempted by those impulse buys of course. Clearly, with a history of debt to my name, I succumbed to many a trip into town for something and returned home with quite a few somethings. But was it my fault or could I just “not help myself”?

I’d love to think the whole sorry affair was down to someone or something much bigger and cleverer than me. I’d love to think that no matter how I tried there was just no way I could resist. But if I can manage to go into town now, with the lessons I’ve had to learn still ringing loudly in my ears, and come home with nothing more than I actually went for, why couldn’t I do it before? And why can’t the women whose conversation I wandered in to?

Part of me puts it down to excellent marketing. And I do honestly think that those folks out there touting their wares at us know exactly which buttons to press to get us reaching for our credit cards. But that’s really just a cop out. It allows me to be weak and blame someone else. I really think its down to thinking. I hope I live life in a much more thoughtful way these days. It’s taken a lot of bad decisions and mistakes to get here but maybe I needed to go through them to end up where I am. I know those impulse buys won’t make the slightest bit of difference to my state of mind (whatever it may be) once I get home. I know those lovely things that really did look so lovely in the shop will fill me, not with happiness, but with a kind of sapping emptiness once they are hanging in my closet or sitting on a shelf. I know my bank balance won’t look as rosy as it could. And I think about all those things.

I wonder too if you never have a thinking kind of moment in life and you never stop and wonder about all that stuff you buy if you can just be happy like that. Maybe those women were completely happy with life and with their impulsive shopping. Maybe you are either the kind of person who stops and thinks about it and then does something or the kind who never really thinks about it at all (and I guess there must be some in-betweeners who stop and think about it then carry on regardless). I’m not suggesting either is right or wrong and I’d never suggest that those who love to shop are poor saps who could never be happy because they haven’t found enlightenment. I hope those two women got home and were fabulously happy with their new stuff and weren’t left thinking, as I often did, “oh”.