Sometimes you must get honest with yourself: are you infatuated only with the ideal, or is it something you’re really going to do (or want)?
An example is the person who bought a treadmill thinking he will run marathon amounts of miles (or kilometers for those you with nationalized healthcare) every week. What ends up happening is the treadmill will sit and gather dust after the first week of ownership. He fell in love with the image of himself being a fit runner, but his actual proclivities never made the change. He’s never going to be a runner, and that’s okay!
My family bought a $400 Vitamix mixer thinking that smoothies will become a regular thing. That unit has since been gathering dust on the counter. Same thing with that air fryer, too…
I’ve had this ideal of owning enthusiast cars and taking them on many roadtrips, documenting them along the way. That practice has not materialized at all in the past decade plus of driving. What I actually prefer is owning the cars, but not to have too much to do with it otherwise. If it were possible for a car to never require maintenance and the paint always keeps shiny - sign me up. I much rather be driven (or walk) everywhere than get behind the wheel.
It’s being painfully honest with myself that explains why I’ve never owned more than one car at time. I enjoy seeing enthusiasts’ garages with a fleet of cars. It would be nice in theory to have many cars of my own, representing different varieties the automotive world has to offer. But if I can’t even be bothered to do anything with one car, buying any more would simply be a burden.
Being realistic is why I recently sold the BMW M2. It was costing too much money to support the ideal of being an owner of such an amazing car. I don’t use it, it mostly sits, and the insurance for the car is amazingly high. I would be lying to myself if I kept the M2 on the pretense that sometime in the future I may use it as I’d imagined. It’s highly unlikely, given the five prior years of ownership it hasn’t already happened.
Spending money is easy. So is imagining our changing lifestyle with that new purchase. I think it’s important to deeply think over whether or not it’s merely the idea that we are enamored with. Are you buying a house just for the sake of buying a house? Will your present lifestyle actually be improved? Or will the house just add more costs and responsibilities that, in the end, you really don’t want?
Where to, young man?