a childhood lesson

When I was a kid, one of the things I really looked forward to at the beginning of each new school year was buying new school supplies and stationary. Our school would send us "shopping lists" that basically spelled out all the materials we would need to get through the school year. Armed with these lists, my parents would bring my sister and me to Office Depot (or the time's equivalent) and we would stock up on brand new pens, pencils, notebooks, rulers, and everything else. My sister and I would go crazy looking for the coolest new stationary, be it fancy new mechanical pencils or folders with pictures of lions or eagles on their covers. Sometimes we would find an organizer that we thought looked really cool, and we would beg our parents to get it even though we didn't really need it. And we usually got what we asked for.

On my 6th grade year, my cousin transferred into my school. After one of the first days of our classes, her mom picked us both up, and we went back to their house for the rest of the day to do our homework and have dinner until my parents got off work to pick me up. As I pulled out my fancy new stationary from my backpack, I noticed that my cousin was using old, beat up notebooks and supplies that looked worn from frequent use. Almost immediately, I felt my cheeks burning in shame, and in that same instant, something heavy settled right on top of my heart and stayed there for the rest of that day... and for the rest of that year as well.

From that moment on, I stopped asking my parents to buy me new school supplies every year; I would take the school list and cross almost everything off, saying, "I already have that" or "I could just use what I used last year for this." In fact, since that day, I stopped asking them to buy me anything that I didn't need. And from that, I learned to conserve and maximize the value and utility of the things that I did have. Sure, there were things that I really, truly enjoyed that I still indulged in (in particular, my DragonLance collection), but I had begun to understand both the virtue and the value of thrift.

No amount of teaching or lecturing from my parents or any of my teachers could have had nearly the same effect as a moment like that in my childhood. There's really nothing quite like a first-hand experience to really teach you a lesson that you'll remember for the rest of your life.

Though I never told them this, I am eternally grateful to my cousins for both this lesson and all the other lessons that they've unconsciously taught me throughout the years that I spent growing up with them.

I guess now is better than never.