Things I Want to Buy and the Three-Day Rule

A recent review of my personal finances has led me to once again list things I want instead of buying them with one-click on Amazon.

I don't need one-click shopping to get in trouble. I did this for a while some 15 or 20 years ago when I thought I needed a cool-down period before shopping.  It is a simple habit. When I want to buy something (other than groceries and other necessities) I write it down (on the memo on my smart phone), with the date, and refrain from buying it for three days. I'm not "postponing" a purchase. I'm giving an impulse a waiting period to see if I really want the thing in three days or have thought better of it.

I'm sure I picked this idea up from a helpful book.  Not the book shown to the right. It's here because it was a sudden keen desire for this book that made me suspect I need to slow down and finish the last book I bought.

I learned about this book in one of John Tarrant's generous pieces on koans. This one was, "If you turn things around you are like the Buddha," which Tarrant notes is found in the above collection.   I think you do it like this:

You have a thought ~
I waste too much money on impulse items.

You can turn that around and think~
I don't waste money enough.
or, in my case,
I don't waste enough time.

Actually, I personally do.  I waste a whole day every Sunday.  And I waste money enough, I believe. Yesterday my new UP24 arrived. This is a bracelet (like a FitBit) that coordinates with my phone and logs my steps, graphs my sleep, and vibrates every 45 minutes to remind me to get up and stretch. And logs my food, if I want it to.  It seemed like a silly luxury, but 24 hours with it has me feeling like it's the greatest thing I ever did. I think it will help me get back in shape and be honest with myself about what I eat.

from HenriettaAndMorty on Etsy

The above pillow, on the other hand, is pretty nonfuctional.  I added it to the wait list yesterday.  Buddha with a sense of humor. Really, I love it, and if I had to choose I'd probably get more joy from it than another book of koans.  I do like koan work; over the years it has nourished my general ability to feel joy.  Here's a personal koan I have often carried with me when I shop for clothes~

Does this make you want to do a little dance of happiness?

Actually, it does.

Why Wun Meditates

In a sense, Wun doesn't meditate because they "like to," Wun meaning me, but universalizing. Do you like cleaning your teeth thoroughly before bed? Sometimes not. You're tired. And as we age, by the way, it just gets more time-consuming, involving luxury products like a Rotabrush and floss, maybe a Waterpik. I was quite impatient with all this when I had to begin doing it fifteen or twenty years ago. Meditation is like that, too. A rebellious child within Wun thinks, I shouldn't have to do this. It isn't fun.

But Wun does it. I hesitate to say, Here's what I gain from meditation, as it is fatal to do a spiritual practice in order to gain something, such as EnLightenment or the best tree pose in the class. (You could read Chogyam Trungpa's Spiritual Materialism on this subject.) But I do meditate because in the long run, I gain from it, the same way I gain something from cleaning my teeth and sweeping the kitchen. It isn't a totally bad comparison; meditation is a kind of sweeping clean.

A story. When I sit, I usually use a small elegant Pyrex timer, the kind you buy where cooking utensils are sold. It beeps twice when there are ten minutes left, and again, when there are five minutes left - very useful for calling Wun back to the task.

Today the beep surprised me. Perhaps I had missed the ten-minute beep, I wasn't sure. This thought led to an impulse to turn my head and look at the timer. It's easy to do something like that when you're practicing alone. When practicing in a group, you hesitate even to raise your eyes to look at a clock, because everyone knows we are supposed to stay quite still. Peer pressure. And then, stillness leads to better meditation. This was explained to me initially as "The stiller the body, the stiller the mind."

But today I caught myself, and didn't look. I held still, while my mind registered the thought that not following that impulse was good for me. Practice in not following every little impulse.

You never know what a specific action will lead to; this might be one reason long-time meditators are often quieter than most people, say less, maybe do less. May be slow to leap into sub-prime mortgages or new clothes.

Thinking before you act can at least save you from trying meth. It might lead you to speak out when your impulse is to protect yourself; or not to speak out, say at the family reunion, when political argument is likely to lead to a fistfight. (This actually happened in my mother's family, a vivid argument between brothers about electing a Catholic to the presidency. I missed it.)

Meditation is far from the only way to stand back a little from your impulses. At one time in my life, during the hectic eighties, I took to carrying a little notebook in which I would write down everything I wanted to buy (groceries and gas excluded), and wait three days before buying it. This worked to stifle pretty much all my consumerist desires. They just drifted away down the stream of time, to be replaced by other drifting desires.

Impulse control. You can't buy it at Wal-Mart. On the other hand, stop and think what follows from shopping at Wal-Mart.