Eliza received an Amazon gift card for Christmas and still has not spent it. She’s also been saving her allowance for some time, and a few weeks ago, I mentioned that she could keep saving and then combine her allowance with her gift card and get something nice, like an American Girl Doll, in a few months.
Last night she asked if she could use her gift card to buy some books for her Kindle or mp3’s, and I told her she ought to save that money for something bigger. But thinking better of it this morning, I told her that she was free to spend that card on whatever she wanted.
She said, “Well, I’ve been thinking about the American Girl doll, and I already have one that I don’t play with that much. And I think that I would get that new doll and it would be really exciting for a little bit and then I’d just end up laying it down with my other one and not using it. So I’m not sure I want to save up and get that.”
There are grownups who haven’t realized what Eliza has learned, that most of the time the toys we buy never satisfy or entertain us for very long. Many have not realized that “the wanting” and “the buying” are 90% of the fun, and the 10% left of “the having” wears off really quickly. And she realizes that while she has really enjoyed her American Girl doll, and still plays with it fairly often, one is enough and two would be too much.
When I grow up, I want to be wise like her.
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