I was boiling water to make tea for my sore throat when I hesitated over the 4 tea bags left. I worried. Should I hold off for now in case of a worse sore throat later?

This is intentional consumption taken to an illogical extreme. I had a sore throat right then. I had soothing tea in my possession right then. Why would I suffer in the present on behalf of some hypothetical future version of me? Future me will be perfectly capable of picking up more tea.

Gretchen Rubin encourages us to “spend out” the things we have. Rubin once saved a favorite bottle of perfume for so long it spoiled in the bottle, and she laments all those ordinary days she deemed not special enough to wear it. To have run out of perfume would’ve been preferable to running out of time to use said perfume.

For those of us neurotics not in the overindulgent YOLO camp, we can struggle to actually use our favorite things. We wonder if we’re worthy of the “luxury” of something as pedestrian as herbal tea, let alone our finest wine, our nicest sweaters, our good dishes.

This doesn’t bode well for the level of clutter in our homes. We’ll hold on to lots and lots of stuff for everyday use because we’re too precious about our favorite things. Meanwhile, our truly favorite things gather dust awaiting a day that’s “special” enough for them.

When we use that second-tier stuff, we’ll feel little sources of friction as we go about our tasks.

When we use our best things, we instead feel little moments of gratitude for the beautiful design, craftsmanship, or memories therein.