Impress your family, use the best best plates, cups and cutlery every day.
ARE you a user or a hoarder? Not quite sure what I am talking about?
Okay, here is a little test: if someone gives you something nice — say, a fancy wallet or a new bag — are you the sort of person who uses it immediately or do you stash it away in a safe place because it is “too nice” and can only be used on special occasions?
This is slightly different from that other type of person who likes saving the best for last so he/she can enjoy it more. You must have done this at some time or other– kept a nice piece of chicken or fish on one side of your plate so you can savour it later, after you have finished the rest of your meal.
So, just to be sure, we are not talking about this kind of person. We are talking about the user (must use everything immediately no matter how expensive) and the hoarder who does the exact opposite.
Well, I have been both a user and a hoarder at different times in my life. When I was growing up, I couldn’t wait to use whatever new thing I was given.
New box of colour pencils? I’d be the first to try out every single colour in the box. New shoes? I’d want to wear them in the house if my parents let me.
Then I grew up and sort of became a hoarder. I got into the special occasion thing: certain clothes were meant to be everyday clothes and then there were the special occasion ensembles meant to be brought out and worn only at weddings, birthday parties and the like.
This spilled over into crockery, cutlery, and all manner of things.
In my case, this included notebooks. I love stationery and notebooks in particular. But I never used them, thinking my scribbles and notes simply not worthy to live in those lovely notebooks.
Well, I have revised my thinking in recent years and have declared every day to be good enough for all the beautiful, lovely things I own. Sure, it’s an entirely personal declaration - who else cares if I think it is okay to use the good plates and cutlery every day, right? — and I don’t really give it more than a glancing thought as the days go by.
But I was reminded of the user or hoarder mindset recently when I gave somebody a shawl and she said it was too pretty to use in the office. That was when I had to tell her my grandmother story.
It was Christmas 1993 and we were all home for the holidays. That was the year of the tragic Highland Towers collapse. They were showing the rescue efforts “live” on TV and my grandmother spent hours watching it. Like the rest of the country, she wanted very much for them to find some survivors. Even one would do.
That Christmas, we were reminded of how ephemeral life can be, of how quickly everything you love can be taken away from you.
When it came time for us to return to Kuala Lumpur, she gave me a box. It was nothing special. Just a cardboard box but it was pretty heavy.
I opened it and found, wrapped in old newspapers, my late mother’s most cherished tea-sets and Pyrex casserole dishes.
They were all new… never used in the 20-over years my mother had them. Some of these things had been given to her at her wedding.
So my grandmother said, “Take and use every day. Don’t be like your mummy; she died and she never got to use them. You just never know when you are going to die… look at those poor people in Highland Towers.”
Since then, I have tried to make every day a special occasion day. Why not eat off the good china every day? And dress up in your gladrags even though you don’t really have anywhere special to go to.
I know, you feel guilty because all this every-day-is-a-special-occasion feels just a tad self-centred.
Eating off the good plates, wearing the nice T-shirt just to go grocery shopping… but you know what, so what?
That’s right. Why are we so bothered about people thinking we are self-centred because we want to celebrate every day like it is a special day? I don’t know about you but I don’t want to save it for a special occasion anymore.
Why save the best plates for guests? So they will be impressed? I want instead to impress my family and myself. They should know they are good enough to use the special plates and cups and cutlery. Every day.
My grandmother was right. Things are meant to be used, not saved for some special day. So take the necklace your mother gave you out of the box and wear it now. And that handbag your daughter gave you for Mother’s Day, use it, please.
Just the other day, my friend and I were admiring the toes of one of the women at the nail salon we go to. She had done her toes up in a pretty colour with some sparklies thrown in.
“Why don’t you do yours the same way?” she asked.
My friend replied, “Maybe for a special occasion.”
You know what the woman said? “Why not today? Once you have done it, it becomes a special occasion.
And there you have it.
New Straits Times