Friends Old, New, and Soon to Be,
I do not put a lot of stock in the first day of the year as a reliable point of personal overhaul. In fact, of all the lies I tell myself, the New Year’s resolution is generally chief amongst them; a traditional guidepost for exactly what I am not going to do in the coming year. I believe the habits we display over time are predictors of our future performance, and neither declaring “new year, new me” nor the dropping of a ball in Times Square has much impact on that reality. That’s not to denigrate your own resolutions, or adherence thereto. Some folks, my wife amongst them, find a genuine reinforcement for their willpower in commencing things on the first day of the New Year. But despite my stated plans for 2025, I still need to lose fifteen pounds, I still choose steak over kale (truthfully, I choose most anything over kale), and I still need to clean out the garage. And my office. And the rented storage shed that holds…well, I’m not entirely sure, though I know how much I pay for the privilege of not knowing.
Unmoved by resolution, I must acknowledge I am driven by cost. In 2024, having reached a point at which the physical cost was unacceptable, I joined a yoga studio and hired an athletic trainer less than half my age. A bit more than a year later, I am more flexible and markedly stronger than I’ve ever been in a life at least partially built on physicality. For me, it is a matter of creating costs I am unwilling to ignore, of choosing to spend for quality over quantity, an increasingly valuable habit.
Many years ago, as a teenager, my mother talked to me about a tendency of men on her side of the family to accept the cheaper answer over the better one. She encouraged me to think about an item’s longevity as much as I did the immediate cost. Of course, my Uncle Jim always said my mother is a fan of whatever takes the longest and costs the most, but her point still resonates, and the result has me thinking about all the lesser things I’ve allowed to clutter my life rather than simply saving for the long-term answer.
I naturally ascribe to the notion that it’s better to have and not need than to need and not have, a tendency made worse every time I’m able to use a single screw leftover from that time I installed a ceiling fan. Quality costs more in immediate capital, of course. But what is the cost of quantity? Of storing all those random screws and nails, or the time spent sorting through lumber scraps rather than going to the hardware store and getting precisely what I need? What can’t I find because it’s obscured under items of questionable quality or purpose? How many of those things have I forgotten altogether, rendering them useless even when I both need and have them?
As I begin to consider whether the clutter in my life is more a cost than an opportunity, I am seeking just enough genuinely good items rather than a surplus of those deemed just good enough, just in case. That parsing has the natural, budget-imposed effect of minimizing the quantity of things I acquire while ensuring I reach for, and use, the quality items that have already made the cut. Increasingly, I consider the value of having the right tools for the job, not for the job yet to manifest, or one that did but is unlikely to again. As I part with the things acquired because they were good enough, I have to ask if they didn’t cost more in the aggregate than the single forever version I now value. As I age, that’s a question that has me wondering more and more about whether the things I have are truly worth passing down or whether I am just creating a burden for someone else through my own possessory intemperance.
Still, despite my contrarian nature, I’ll likely make some list of nebulous goals for 2026, probably something about fifteen pounds, leafy greens, and an orderly garage. But in a nation awash in things, a culture built upon planned obsolescence, drive-through convenience, and single-serving containers, I increasingly want to opt out after decades spent in adherence to those ideals. Maybe that’s worth risking as a resolution, despite my countless past failures.
Ask me about it in twelve months.
Yours,
Russell Worth Parker
Editor-in-Chief, Tom Beckbe Field Journal
