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I'm frustrated with my tendency towards indecision, and I react by overcompensating. But maybe I could let slow choosing protect me instead. Especially financially!
I get on a tear for about a month at a time about one thing (interior design currently) and I want to upend my material possessions. I'm obsessively thinking about money and furniture right now and the occasional reward of the great FB marketplace find temporarily justifies the time sink of it all. I feel the pressure of grabbing something before it's gone and to fill the room I'm working on with all the little details that will perfect it and justify the time spent. But at the end of a search, online shopping and even just window shopping makes me feel depressed and like I'm wasting hours of my life on insubstantial nothings. Making one purchase greases the wheels to make another and the desire to consume exponentially increases while the satisfaction dwindles.
The rec is to let the dust settle before reacting to change. Even if you have barriers that will physically prevent you from making your next decision, like a budget forcing you to wait on a following purchase, don't invest time researching that next decision until you've figured out how you feel about your last one. Move all the furniture in a room around and leave it for a few days even if it's sort of worse, put all the knick-knacks in a box and then take them out again, write down everything you want to change on a piece of paper and leave it on your desk for a week. Draw a picture of your vision and tape it above your bed. I drew literally 6 different versions of the room I'm sitting in and it's still in a different state than I could have predicted I would have chosen.
My favorite thing in here now is a collage I made years ago which I dug out of a moving box in my closet and stuck in a dirty frame my friend thrifted. It's a crappy DIY and I had to use a claw hammer to bend and unbend the nails holding the backing to do it. I hated the result, but left it on my desk anyways and now it makes me happy every day.
Apr 11, 2025
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Almost spent $700 on custom shoes. Kept stalling for a bunch of different reasons and now I HATE that sort of shoe. Its a godsend to really sit in and let that initial excitement wear off a little.
Apr 11, 2025
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Technically I’m using this term wrong—it’s from the “marshmallow experiment” (iykyk). But in the last year, I have been developing a stronger muscle for delayed gratification as a counter to instant gratification. We live in a very wild moment in modernity / late-stage capitalism where seemingly everything we desire (to own, to know) is at our fingertips. And I’m not entirely convinced we were meant to live like this. Yearning, waiting, longing for something, being patient—these are an important part of the human experience. So why deny ourselves the distinct pleasure of waiting for or working toward something by instantly having it? Slowing down is very very good for us and part of what keeps me going.
Here are some ways I practice my delayed gratification:
🕐 film photography, it takes a long while to finish a roll and more time to get the pictures developed
⏲️ borrowing media from the library (bonus points for requesting the library purchase something for me, then hoping and waiting with no guarantee)
🕰️ buying myself a present and then not opening it until the right moment. both of the gold charms that i wear daily i waited a couple of months to open to mark major life milestones
⏰ making sourdough bread. i have to decide three days in advance that i want to bake it and start feeding my starter so she’s ready to bake with.
⏱️ keeping a wishlist instead of buying something the second i want it. this gives me time to consider the purpose it serves, determine if i already own something similar (especially clothing), figure out if i can get by borrowing it (books! music! tools!), and ultimately save up for it. also our shopping impulses are often a response to something deeper inside of us, which is how we often accumulate so much stuff!
💌 sending letters / having pen pals, which gives us the chance to slow down our responsiveness and availability. i love anticipating their letters and sitting down to draft my own.
🪷 having an orchid in my house. she blooms once a year, but i nurture her throughout the year to reach that moment each spring.
Mar 25, 2025
U will accumulate these kinds of objects over a lifetime anyways—best that when they come into Ur life, they hold some sentimental value rather than being a tchotchke that just collects dust. Wall art is a bit of an exception to this rule—get that stuff framed (or do it Urself! A standard size frame, an xacto knife, and a little patience can go a long way).
My most general advice is to be patient and picky. Don’t rush to fill Ur space. And a find Urself a little reference book for colour palette inspo to help keep stuff grounded (just use something you have already!)
May 23, 2024
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I have so many random little trinkets (small paintings for my bathroom, jewellery dishes and even a little jewellery box shaped like a cushion with a cunty heel on top) — all of which were unexpected, slowly-collected finds at random thrift stores.
I second the previous comment about slow articulation. If you have the essentials, and are craving individual-niches — take your time :) which is prescriptive advice, but the effects of delayed gratification are like how paintings go up in a museum — with time, shuffling between here n there, and lots of patience
I also like going to winners or marshals or home sense for little strange things
Aug 8, 2024
Top Recs from @bumbythefool
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I’m sick of feeling powerless so my new coping strategy is to not let a stupid system bully me into quiet despair. I’m learning how to use my state’s General Assembly’s online bill tracker and I’m subscribing to email updates for the agendas and the public hearings of the legislative committees I’m most concerned about. I’m memorizing all my legislators‘ names and emailing and calling regularly.
Also: Check to see if your state’s Legislative Library has Libguides that explain in layman’s terms what bills are passing in your state and other educational/legislative resources you have freely available to you!!!
Nov 20, 2024
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You will make about 60k if you're lucky unless you become a manager, and you will have 35k of debt or more from grad school (online grad school is cheaper sometimes and no one cares where you get the degree anyways). And sometimes you work for a university (which is essentially a corporation) or the government. But in general everyone in your field will believe in a code of ethics that raises the dignity of humanity above the mire of misinformation and censorship. And you help empower people with the information literacy to move through the world as confident capable individuals/professionals/scholars. Community college libraries are my favorite environment I've worked in so far because the students are cool, driven, and diverse in age and background. Public libraries also do amazing social work in 2025 to provide services to their communities like harm reduction, networks of resources for unhoused people, language teaching, professional development, basic technology training, literally just being a third space, I could go on forever. It definitely is a career that exists because of neoliberalism I'm not going to lie, like American public libraries only exist because robber barons in the 1900s donated a mind boggling amount of grants to towns across the country to build them (not sure about other countries' history with this to be fair). All that being said I decided I wanted to be a librarian when I was 16 and I've been committed to that path for 11 years with no regret.
To add a personal note to this rec and emphasize how meaningful this work really is, I'm going to indulge in a story because I could genuinely cry thinking about all the kind, interesting people I've met who have chosen to be vulnerable with me about their needs and goals. A couple years ago I helped an older man for multiple hours to remember his email login so he could get a copy of his birth certificate from his son-in-law who had emailed a scan of the physical copy which was in another country. The stakes were incredibly high and the task seemed virtually impossible because we didn't even have an email address to start. He was having trouble reaching his son-in-law to ask for help because of the time difference, and he needed the scan ASAP. We were together for so long I learned a lot about him. He talked to me about Islam and Christianity and angels. And then we got it! It's probably one of the defining moments of my career and to me is one of the most impactful things I've ever done.
So there's my job rec lol!
Mar 13, 2025
Apr 16, 2025