Breaking of a Nasty Habit

One of my more terrible habits is being what my mother's family terms a "looky-lou". I am a champion window shopper, fond of reading books at bookstores without buying them, picking up and hugging stuffed animals before putting them back, and, perhaps most memorably, spending an entire day looking at and trying on prom dresses at an outlet mall before going home and buying one at a thrift store. I suppose this stems from being raised by recycling-conscious folks who were in turn raised by Depression-era parents. Ultimately, it prominently displays my lack of impulsiveness, which some (including my parents, to an extent) see as a value in a person my age. I thought it was too, until I became a victim of similar treatment.

I make stuffed animals and similar sundries, and routinely attend craft fairs during the holiday season. For the past few years, I limited myself to a single show that a friend's family holds. This year, I was organized enough to set up three for myself. At the show I previously attended, I generally made around $150 each time. At each of the three shows I attended this year, I made around $60, excluding the dents my friends and I made for lunch and coffee and the down payment on the space. More people than ever before have picked up my things, commented on how cute they are, claimed that my prices are extremely reasonable, then dropped them and disappeared into the crowd. I started an online store in the hopes of avoiding this, but from the looks of things, the habits are rampant on the internet as well.

I am fully aware that this is some sort of cosmic retribution, and that I've had it coming to me for well over eighteen years, but I still get overly excited about the fact that people enjoy seeing what I enjoy doing. For the first few hours of each show, this is enough to hold me over, but as time wears on, it gets awfully annoying.

Now that I am aware of how it feels, I have vowed to break this habit in my own life. I don't want to be seen as materialistic, and I do put a lot of consideration into where and how I spend my money. I am teaching myself how to rapidly think on my feet. This has never been my strong suit, but it seems to be the only method of survival in the cutthroat world of marketing I currently find myself in. I also think it is one of those qualities that eddies over into other aspects of life.

So far, focusing on the positive and negative qualities of each thing I am tempted to handle, and measuring how much more I'll enjoy having it for my own, has led me to be a much more assertive person, a quality I think it's safe to say I've never had before. My newly found spine has helped me in countless ways in pursuing my artistic talents; I intend to be a director in addition to continuing my stuffed creatures, and I no longer have qualms about whether something is "good enough" anymore. I don't believe in "good enough" anymore. For me, it must be truly the best, or I won't buy it by any definition.