When I got the idea to write a post entitled “Use What You Have”, I thought to myself that I certainly must have expressed that notion before. Well, I did, and more than once. In 2013, I wrote Use What You Have and in 2020 I wrote Use What You Already Have. Rather than come up with a creative title, I decided to just consider this one as part 3 of a series.
Here is what happened to make me want to write about this topic again: I lost my watch. I don’t know how or where. All I know is that I had it on a couple of Saturdays ago as I was walking home, and then later on I looked at my wrist and it was gone. Perhaps it fell off while I was on my way home, or perhaps it fell off in my home. The bottom line is that I was unable to find it.
My first thought, of course, was “I’ll buy a new one!” The old one was a Swatch, and I expected to be near a Swatch store the next day.
But then I had another thought. I have an Apple Watch that nowadays I only wear when I’m working out so that I can monitor my heart rate and capture my statistics. I decided to try wearing the Apple Watch daily to see if I could make that work.
I lasted one day. It was just too bulky, and it made me remember why I had stopped wearing it in the first place.
Next, my thoughts turned to the stash of old watches I had in my jewelry box. I pulled them out and tried to remember why I had stopped wearing them. Two of them were ones that I used to wear in the past, and the third belonged to my mother. Of course all the batteries were run down. I took two of them — the bracelet watch that preceded the Swatch, and my mother’s — to the jeweler to get new batteries.
I started with the bracelet watch. It was kind of fun and dressy, but it occasionally dug into my wrist a little. I think I will use it as a special occasion watch, when I don’t have to wear it all day.
Then I put on my mother’s watch with the expansion band. Remember the Speidel Twist-a-Flex? This watch has one of those. I love the practicality of it, and it is pretty nice-looking, too.
I think of this watch as my Goldilocks watch. I tried “Too Bulky” and “Too Sharp” before I got to the one that was “Just Right!”
Next time you lose, break, or run out of something, stop before you go buy another one. Do you have something you have been keeping “just in case” that you can use instead? If the “just in case” items aren’t suitable anymore, then you should get rid of them.
