Stories told through time
Years ago, I was something of a miser. I’d like to blame it on getting a pay cut and wondering if I could even hold on to my job during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. It would also be convenient to blame it on the fact that I met my girlfriend (now wife) around the same time, and she wasn’t a big spender either. Or heck, I could blame it on the environment that I grew up in. While we were never poor, my childhood was one of DIY home repairs and hand-me-down clothes. I thought THE sign of true wealth was if your basketball hoop in the driveway had a glass backboard instead of plastic.
It was none of those things.
My miserly ways were at least somewhat of my own creation, and ultimately it was my own responsibility to solve. I would have to (at least partially) figure out how to end my wicked ways which included highlights such as:
Eating at home before going out with friends so that my bill was less
Failing to donate to causes that I cared deeply about despite having at least some means with which to do so
Checking my bank account app several times a day despite nothing changing
Funnily enough, I had no issue spending on others when necessary, but a theme emerged: spending on myself was taboo. Not allowed. Frivolous. Vanity. A personal failing. This constantly rang in my head as mental health struggles amplified this blunt rhetoric.
Yeesh. Harsh!
After getting a new job and aligning spending and saving to my values, one hurdle remained: treating myself. One by one I removed obstacles that I placed in my own way, until none remained. Still, I couldn’t do it. I visited a local watch store quite a few times, unable to pull the trigger on a watch that I loved at a great price. Finally, I mustered up the courage! And… where I expected guilt, I felt relief. Where I thought I would experience crippling guilt, I felt satisfaction.
I had done it.
On that day, and forever since, when I look down at that watch that started my whole collection, I relive that triumph, if only for a moment. It reminds me that through great effort and help from those around me that I CAN do hard things. I can live into my values and treat myself occasionally. So, on my wrist my watch sits, permanently a symbol of my triumph over myself, of what I am capable of when I have a solid foundation around me and become all that I can be. I discovered a love for something built to last, something devoid of yet another subscription fee, something that inspires and pays tribute to an art form.
In an era where nearly everything tells the time (your phone, microwave, oven, car, computer…) why do people still choose watches? It is my belief that it’s due to the stories they tell, like mine above. It’s for the memories they conjure up, and the people they can remind us of even if they’re no longer with us.
That is the love that ultimately propelled me into building watches a few years later. My dad’s 60th birthday was just under a year away, but no gift felt right, nothing seemed to adequately capture my love for him, for his story, for his life. A nascent idea of a watch company began to form, one that needed to tell a story, to mean something. That is a tale for next time…
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I am hopeful to launch orders for watches that I have built as well as pre-orders for a brand new watch model by Memorial Day.