Perhaps a strange question to ask in a year when, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we have barely been meeting anyone, let alone shaking anyone’s hand when meeting.
Intriguingly, and interestingly, it has had even more significance for me over the past months.
It has made me think about a term I have used many times for our ‘touch points’ with things in life – our ‘handshake’. For example, when one drives a car there are a number of points that are important – the key to unlock the car, the door handle to allow us to get inside, the door pull to close the door. And when driving there is the contact with the steering wheel and the gear lever/selector. These are some of the points where one makes contact. In my early days of motoring, as a young new driver, I owned cheap cars where the steering wheel was plastic, and it felt like a cheap plastic too; sometimes with a moulding ridge that has a rough edge to it. Perhaps the gear knob also had a similar feel.
So why is this of any note? I can think back to a cheap car I owned and even after carefully removing the excess moulding ridge it always felt cheap and merely functional. Many years later I bought a car and, whilst not expensive, the one thing I instantly noticed when I test drove the car was both the steering wheel, and gear lever, felt wonderful – beautifully finished with excellent stitching and materials. I kept the car longer than I usually do and gained pleasure when I drove the car, because these touch points, or my ‘handshake’ with the car was so pleasant. Was it the reason I kept the car so long, I am not sure – certainly on every journey I was not reminded that I ‘bought cheaply’.
My father always said, if you buy cheaply for something important be prepared to change when you can afford to upgrade, else wait and buy well once so you always respect, and want to look after the item. As a saying goes ‘the value is remembered long after the price has been forgotten.’
With a good quality item, it generally ‘wears in’ and becomes better. Think of a good quality pair of shoes; they take a while to mould to your feet, the leather starting to crease and look more characterful than when they came fresh out of the box. And if they were expensive, one is much more inclined to look after them well, polish them, have them properly repaired, because over the years they will serve one well, with much pleasure gained from their use too. The same applies to a good coat. They take a little time to become worn-in and it is a long time before they become worn-out and replaced.
With antique items, the term used when signs of use develop is patination. In fact, to heavily clean and remove this patination usually decreases the value.
But if one thinks of less expensive items the same rule applies. As examples: I use a decent paper to write and print on, even drafts. Yet I take greater pride, and certainly use less paper, as I am far less dismissive and wasteful – it is not ‘cheap’ paper.
I use a decent pen and pencil, rather than a ‘cheap’ plastic ball pen, or wooden pencil with a chewed end. I value them more; I care for them more; I enjoy using them more.
When I stop at a high street café for a coffee…or when this again become usual, I will ask for a cup or mug if I am staying in, rather than have a disposable container where there is always a thin cheap plastic top. I have no wish to drink through cheap plastic, if I don’t have too – I wish to savour the coffee.
In the lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic I, like most of us, have valued things far more. I have realised that when I do have the opportunity to experience something, I would prefer to have fewer, finer things of a higher quality – things I value so much more. And importantly, enjoy using so much more.
So where are your ‘touch points’, or ‘handshakes’ in life, and are they of lasting quality? I am sure they will be different from mine, and that is to be expected, we are all unique.
If you enjoy cooking is your chopping board and knife a pleasure to use and worn-in, or merely worn-out? If gardening is your thing, is your spade, fork, wheel barrow a pleasure to use?
An accomplished artist friend of mine uses a brush that I know cost over £100. That’s for one brush – I didn’t even realise that a brush could cost that much! (I recently checked and a full price replacement is now nearer £200). She is not casually wealthy, more importantly she selects her equipment and materials with thought, and this was not a vanity purchase. She has had the brush for over 20 years, it is still in excellent condition, and uses it frequently. That for her is a valued ‘handshake’, a valued tool, with valued memories of the pieces of work it has helped create.
There is a saying in the speaking world that you may not remember what an exceptional speaker said, but you will remember how they made you feel.
So how do the ‘handshakes’ you have with ‘things’ make you feel? Is that subliminal ‘cheap’ feeling making you feel cheap too, perhaps allowing…even encouraging you to not give your best? Or are your ‘handshakes’ with your world making you value your things, making you slightly pause and take a little more pride in what you are doing, making you value yourself.
Where are the other places in your life, the ‘touch points’, that a really pleasant ‘handshake’ would enhance?
Are you going to live with the feel of cheapness…or add a few more valued ‘handshakes’, that make you feel of value too?
Perhaps an opportunity to take some action.
My best wishes,
Peter
