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| The view from our 23rd-floor condo overlooking Grant Park. When my writing team goes to conferences we rent from VRBO instead of staying in the stuffy, expensive, soul-killing conference hotels. Sometimes this turns out not as fancy as being in a hotel, sometimes it's fancy as hell, like this one was. But having good company and a kitchen is the best part. Plus, you have to walk to the conference, so you get exercise and choose your panels wisely. |
Historically, Chicago has been a major shopping temptation for me because they have all those big, magnificent chain stores on Michigan Avenue that seem to have All of the Things. Also, conferences can be lonely, dehumanizing affairs where you are stuck concentrating under fluorescent lights unable to move for long periods of time. If this sounds very similar to some kinds of torture you can think of, you would be correct. Shopping felt a lot like freedom after such experiences.
And I'm sure I don't need to remind you that retailers think that we are already in the Christmas season, even though we are still a few days away from Thanksgiving. The special hell that is Black Friday is still four days away. There is a deluge of marketing going on, I'm sure.
All of this is a big wind up to my telling you....nothing! So far, Shtopping has been no.big.deal. I haven't bought anything, and only once was tempted by an Old Navy ad that popped into my inbox and I thought maybe I should buy Addie a winter coat. But I wisely checked in with her first and she reminded me that she prefers to wear sixteen fleeces layered than put up with the itchiness and zippers of a coat. So I stayed strong.
The keys to my success so far have been:
1) Unsubscribing from all the retail emails and Facebook retail posts.
2) Work ramped up, as it always does in November, and I have been able to use the extra time from Shtopping very, very wisely.
3) I have really enjoyed the freedom from the stress shopping always caused me. That's a self-reinforcing mechanism right there.
4) Most importantly, I have amazing friends and family who are always inviting me to things and loving on me and it's much easier to focus on them when I'm not trying to frantically and secretively enter my credit card numbers into a website. My kids are extraordinary, fascinating, exhausting little beings who love my attention, and I theirs. My husband is a closet snugglepuss who is also relieved about this experiment. Friends include me in activities all the time that make me feel loved and happy and stimulated.
As for conferences, I have an incredible team of co-authors who would prefer to spend their time writing interesting things with me, sharing beers together, and avoiding consecutive panel-sitting. They also walk briskly past department store windows, a strategy that is super-effective.
The bottom line is, when you're connected to people in meaningful ways and spend your time on stuff that is satisfying, the pull of shopping virtually disappears. Like I said in the original post, too, I think the pull had already disappeared and I was just going through the motions. But the avoidance shopping enabled got too uncomfortable and I realized I was missing some pretty stellar chunks of my life.
I am a little ashamed to admit that the odd package is still showing up from the pre-Shtopping days. Mostly Christmas gifts, but not all. I'm reminded that the temptation is always there, and that I am weak, while marketers are strong.
77 days to go.
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