Thrift Shopping

I remember going clothes shopping with my mother. She’d walk straight to the Petite section at Dillards or Talbots and try on the same four outfits over and over. She’d usually buy one. Go home, try it on again and then return it the next day. This process took hours. Hours that I would have rather spent somewhere with fewer Liz Claiborne suits.

I am the opposite kind of shopper. I am quick to make decisions and would rather hold on to an item I don’t love than deal with returning it. I’ll even wear it so I don’t feel wasteful.

I have a teenage daughter and let’s just say she does not shop like me. Buying clothes for my kids was easy when they were little. They’d wear anything I brought home as long as the tag didn’t rub. Now I hardly ever dare to pick something out for her. Sometimes I think she dresses like she is homeless, but I suppose I like that more than not leaving enough to the imagination.

For her birthday my mother-in-law texted to ask what sizes she is in now. I answered, but warned that she shouldn’t buy her any clothes. She asked what to avoid and I think she was surprised by my response, “Pretty much anything anyone else picks out”.

Tess wanted me to take her shopping with her birthday money. It is brutal. The long drawn out shopping gene skipped over me and landed right on my daughter. She is not a fast decision maker. She wants to touch everything. Try on very little. Change her mind a dozen times. She will hold it, put it back on the rack and go back to get it again. She will ask me (whose opinion she cares zero about) if she should buy it or not. I generally say yes because I want nothing more for experience to be over. Even though I think a brown button up shirt looks like she will be working in a field rather than going to middle school. She will ask to go to another store first. To make sure they don’t have anything she likes better instead. Then of course she will want to go back.

I’d rather put away laundry. (and that is saying something).

Her favorite places to shop are thrift stores. Although she treats my money like it has no limits, she is incredibly tight with her own. I’ve started to bring a book and sit on the used couches that are also for sale. I sit back and read while she goes up and down the aisles.

Touching everything, buying almost nothing.

And I think I’ve realized that problem.

Tess likes to shop.

I like to purchase.

This is true for shopping but also many other areas of my life. I most often value outcomes and products. I don’t always enjoy the process. As a matter of fact, more often than not I’d fast forward that part if I could. I’m hesitant to encourage Tess’s method of shopping to anyone (who doesn’t have HOURS of their life to waste on an uncomfortable couch that possibly has bed bugs), but most people would agree that the process is often more important than the outcome.

Focusing on the process allows you to re-evaluate and adjust. Focusing on the process is more likely to make sure you end up somewhere or with something you really want, rather than another pair of black pants that I probably did not need.

Focusing on the product only gets you done, the process gets you an experience.

As an educator, I’m better at this distinction. I focus on the learning over the grade.

But in other areas of my life…well…I guess I’m still learning.

At work I often quote Sheryl Sandberg, “Done is better than perfect” and I stand by it.

Except when the doing is the good part (or when a lot of people are going to read that email or report). When I catch myself getting frustrated in a situation, I have started to ask myself:

Which part matters most right now?

The process or the result…and then I lean into my answer. When I can name the part that matters most, my frustrations often diminish.

If the learning matters – I stop arguing about grading policies.

If it is the company that matters, I don’t care where we eat or what we do.

If the deadline matters most, then working out every little detail is no longer necessary.

If the point is to spend time with my daughter, bring on the thrift stores.

Recently I shared some hard things over dinner and a friend and she made me pause.

She asked me. “Do you want a thought or do you want me to just listen?”

And, just like shopping I asked for the thought. I wanted the answer. However, most often in that situation it is the conversation that matters the most.

She was wise enough to ask and I was lucky enough to get value from both.

My friend Tina spoke recently at an NCL meeting for me about service and she read a passage about helping vs. participating she found on the Do Good Design blog.

My kids love “helping.” When I’m cooking dinner, they want to “help.” When I’m fixing something around the house, they want to “help.” If they’re told that I don’t need any help with my task and they can help by doing something else, cleaning up their toys, for example, they will sometimes whine, “but I want to heeelllllp.” I’ve had to explain to them a couple times, gently, of course, that they don’t actually want to “help.” What they want to do is “participate.” Helping means you’re making the job easier. Participating just means that you’re “part” of the job. Of course I’ll humor them sometimes and let them participate, show them how to use a screwdriver or can-opener, but it’s important for them, as they grow into adults, to recognize the difference.

We talked about it and decided that both were important and necessary. We need to help and sometimes we just need people to participate, but how useful it could be to name the difference.

It has hit me lately how important it is to make these small distinctions: process vs. product, listening vs. answering and helping vs. participating. They are all asking essentially the same question. What matters most right now? One isn’t always better than the other, but it is always advantageous to know the preference in a situation.

And so, back to shopping.

Before I took Tess out to spend her money I asked her, “Are you looking to purchase something specific or are you just wanting to enjoy looking and maybe buy something?”

Well…I’m sure you could guess her answer.

p.s. In case anyone was wondering....we went to four stores and bought one pair of used black boots (of which she had almost three identical pairs). I also finished a book.