I'm Having a Cocktail (...or Parrot Bay and The Law of Scarcity)

Christmas Boy is out of town for a few days and tonight, along with my gourmet dinner of a Lebanon Bologna sandwich on white bread, I decided to have a cocktail. Yes, by golly, I'm DRINKING ALONE! 

As I was mixing my Parrot Bay Coconut Rum with a nice cold Coke Zero, I noticed myself relishing the sounds and sights I was creating. The clink clink of the ice cubes against the bottom of my tall glass tumbler, the crackle of the ice as I poured the rum over it into the bottom of the glass, and that unmistakable fizz and tan foam of the Coke Zero bubbling up to fill the glass with a little bit of carbonated Heaven. As I poked a straw into the drink and prepared to partake of 23 ounces of chilled joy, of course my thoughts turned to organizing...

I realized how much I was looking forward to having this delicious cocktail and in that moment, my cocktail was very much like a sentimental thing. An old watch from a grandparent long since passed. The outfit your baby was baptized in. The box of love letters you found after your parents had both passed on. The invitation from your wedding twenty years ago.

Do you know yet how my Parrot Bay and Coke Zero relates to sentimentality and these often cherished items from the past? Here's a hint: The Law of Scarcity. You see, I rarely sit at home and have a cocktail, so on nights like tonight when I do have one, it's a mini special event. It's novel, it's delicious and it's extra fun! And this is all because I don't do it very often. If I had a cocktail every night, it would just be the same old same old and I wouldn't have thought twice about it. This is how the Law of Scarcity works. What we perceive as rare, we assign more value to.

So if you apply this law to the sentimental items I listed above, what does that mean? Before we go further, I realized these items are special, no matter what. But to what degree can they have your attention and get the honor they deserve when they're surrounded and obscured by so many other things? Just think how much MORE special, meaningful, and important items become when there are fewer of them. What if that watch were all you had of your grandfather's? Its perceived sentimental value would be way higher than if it were one of a collection of hundreds of your grandad's things.

Very often I work with clients who have inherited literally hundreds of items from family members and they're conflicted and stuck. Because although they're overwhelmed by the items, at the same time, they're hesitant to part with them for various reasons.  In these cases, I always explain The Law of Scarcity... how the fewer you have of something, the more special, valuable and meaningful it is. To fill your home with an large number of articles from someone else's life doesn't fill your house with more love -- in fact, it does quite the opposite. The sheer quantity of the items collectively diminishes each one's value and meaning.

Only when you whittle your collection down to the most precious few items, do the things begin to take on significant meaning. And it's at that point that you can afford the mental space to enjoy them and give them the attention they deserve on a day to day basis. Now that you've absorbed that concept, why not go have a cocktail?

Comments

[Terry Lessig]

All my childhood possessions were destroyed when the barn where they were stored burnt. Of all that was lost, I only remember two things I really would want today. My Schwinn bicycle, because I earned the money to buy it myself, and a set of Civil War trading cards, because of who gave me a pack of bubble gum every week until I had the entire set. The rest, while important at the time, is better off being ashes.

So, I am with you regarding the material things, but you lost me when it comes to cocktails. I figured they were fair game because, like cookies, they cause no clutter no matter how many you have.

[uneedaklu]

All I can say is, it better be Seltzer's Lebanon bologna, or Alderfer. With mustard. Or it doesn't count.

No self-respecting Pennsylvania girl would eat anything else!

[Lorie Marrero]

Monica, this is a GREAT post! I love it when something in your day can really hit home and make a great lesson for everyone. Now, about this drinking alone thing... LOL! I have not tried that particular cocktail but would love for you to make me one sometime to drink it together!

- Lorie

[Monica Ricci]

Terry, I'm so sorry about your fire. That must have been difficult to experience, as a child. But you're right, that gives you some perspective on what you'd miss if it were suddenly gone. Not that much, as it turns out.

Amy, I always try to get Seltzer's (we don't have Alderfers down here) but did you know Boars's Head makes a nice one too? I'm still dying for some of the SWEET kind though. We can't get sweet Lebanon down south.

Lorie, thanks! You gotta try the coconut rum and Coke Zero. Mmmmm and of course, we should try one together as soon as possible!
~Monica

[Terry Lessig]

Amy--in the middle of the last century, I carried a Lebanon Bologna w/mustard on white bread in my lunch almost every schoolday. The rare occasion would be when mom made ham salad. I grew up in a very, very small PA town, and I think we only had Oscar Meyer as a choice, but it was the sweet kind. Billy Delp always brought Cotto Salami, and I was jealous of his peppercorns. When Allen Woomer brought egg salad, we made him sit at the other end of the table.

Then, either a moon pie or sno-balls for desert.

[Monica Ricci]

MMmmmm Sno-Balls!! I remember them! And by the way Terry, one boy should never be jealous of another boy's peppercorns. In honor of our collective smal-town upbringing, I just ate a Lebanon bologna sandwich with yellow mustard for lunch. Mmmmm...

~Monica

[Terry Lessig]

You're just lucky that Lebanon Bologna doesn't come on skewer sticks that can poke your uvula. I've seen that happen, and I continue to try and poke out my mind's eye.

There is much to celebrate regarding our upbringing; we turned out to be decent people, and I attribute that to the decent people who surrounded us during an important time.

Boys always pulled the skin off the sno-balls and ate it first. Girls, not so much. I was comfortable enough in my own skin to have the pink ones. I was a big kid, so nobody made an issue of it. Everybody must have thought I had decent peppercorns of my own.