Is New Always Better?
I’m watching How I Met Your Mother, and Barney often just stops me in my tracks. For various reasons, and if you’ve seen the show, you know exactly what I mean. In one episode, anyway, he explains one of his ‘rules.’ New is always better.
And so, I got to thinking about this idea – new is always better – and how it applies to us in so many different scenarios. And Barney, he’s kind of right, but I almost wish he wasn’t. Sometimes I feel like we rely on new things, clothes, shoes, hairstyles, people even, to feel excitement, to feel better, to feel refreshed, to feel inspired. Maybe rely on them a little too much. As a recovering shopping addict (just being honest), I am trying to reflect on the way consuming makes me feel. And it used to make me feel so good. I loved the rush of purchasing something new, something trendy, something everyone was wearing, something I was sure I’d be complimented on. But that thrill only lasts as long as a trend. What once was so fresh and exciting becomes just another item stowed away in the back of my closet awaiting its eventual journey to my donation pile.
And even after I’ve cleared out my closet for what feels like the tenth time that year, I somehow still have so many unworn items taking up space, yet I can’t bring myself to get rid of them. We are all too familiar with the disappointment of donating something only for it to come back in style a few years later. I always find myself thinking, “I might need this one day,” as it sits in my closet collecting dust.
I like to think that it’s not entirely my fault, though. We are constantly bombarded with advertisements, influencers linking their outfits, promotional emails, you name it. All trying to make us feel like we NEED something new, almost like we’d be more relevant, cooler even. But is that always better?
Don’t get me wrong, I still love buying new clothes. There is a sense of inspiration that accompanies a purchase. Suddenly, I feel like becoming a new person, exploring my personal style, finding out what feels like me. But can I garner that same inspiration from my own closet, as it is? Or from my friends’ closets? My mom’s, sister’s, or grandma’s? In the past, I used to jump at any excuse to purchase a new outfit, which only left me feeling overwhelmed with the amount of stuff I’d collected and financially anxious for that matter.
To challenge this New Is Always Better concept, I made a deal with myself to buy no new clothes for a year (thrifting allowed). It started as a New Year’s Resolution last year, but it honestly changed my entire perspective. Aside from the positive effects it had on my personal life, I felt so much better about minimizing my environmental impact, too. Once you learn about landfills and fast fashion realities, you really start to question your contribution. Suddenly, I wasn’t SO concerned with the trendiness of my clothes. My free time became a space for creating rather than consuming.
By getting rid of new clothes in my life, I opened my creative floodgates, forcing me to make what is old new again. I had to reconfigure what I already owned to make it feel brand new, and in turn, I unlocked innovative and artistic parts of myself that maybe I wouldn’t have otherwise. I finally felt like I caught a grasp on myself outside of a trend cycle. And that felt good. Better than the rush of spending. As humans, we constantly crave newness, but there really isn’t anything “new”. Ultimately, it's usually a matter of reclaiming old things, old ideas, old relationships, old habits, and patterns in a newfangled way. It’s not the item or thing itself, but what we do with it that makes it fresh again.
So perhaps it’s about generating this feeling of newness yourself. Because, let’s face it, we LOVE new things. We love the dopamine rush, the pleasure, the freshness, the anticipation, the change. We will never escape our desire for change. We are evolving beings, and we get bored. So, instead of consuming something new, create something new. Restore, reimagine, replenish, rejuvenate, refresh what you already know, what you already have. In your closet, in your friendships, in your hobbies, in your routines, and in your habits. In your strengths, in your weaknesses, in your goals, and your plans. Maybe new is always better, or maybe it isn’t, or maybe it simply lies in our own ability to reinvent what’s right in front of us.