Signage

Heeding signposts planted along the way is not especially easy when the signposts are internal. Not the ones on the streets and over highways that give us directions, or just the signage that indicates a grocery store, a shopping mall or a gas station. I reference the signposts given us by our grandparents, parents, teachers and mentors, some with gentler or louder voices than others. They have all fed our soul’s inner wisdom, our self esteem, our minds and hearts. It is up to each individual to discern which become positive self talk and which become negative self talk.

There is a particular, more insidious signpost, that can challenge the value of going deeper, not wider. I suppose it could be called self sabotage, but that sounds a little too psychological for my taste today. Two terms come to mind: cabin fever, experienced in long, cold winters, and then there is frugal fatigue. Cabin fever, in my experience, is the result of burrowing deep inside our homes during winter storms. It is full of angst, snappy tempers and just longing for even one spring day - just one! Frugal fatigue seems to be the result of burrowing deeper into what we already have. In Daniel Cain’s blog, at raptitude.com, he discusses our learned need for constant newness. Along with going deeper into what we have, there is a drop in shopping unless it is for groceries, or some article of clothing or shoes that are needed. Shopping is that most treasured of activities our society has come to know and participate in sometimes with wild abandon. There is a fairly high degree of social activity accompanying shopping. It may be a shopping spree with a good friend, but for the most part it is the interactions with other shoppers, the experience of having the hum of other people around and the pleasantries at the till that create this social activity. After all, it is called retail therapy by many participants. 

Frugal fatigue, like cabin fever, can be most disconcerting, even though everyday a quality of richness exists within our homes. So much has been neatly tucked away in a cupboard or closet. Finding a social depth within our communities provide a solution to this unexpected problem.

“…learning to live without regular doses of the little high we get when 

we start something new. If we indulge in it too often, we can 

develop a sort of ‘sweet tooth’ for the feeling of newness itself.”

~ Daniel Cain, raptitude.com