I Outgrew Buying Experiences Not Things.

Being a nomad got old.

Photo by Tobias Tullius on Unsplash — arguably, this *is* one of the best experiences life has to offer, even when you’ve done it a hundred times. I don’t need to do it for months at a time anymore though. Give me a week or two to catch up on all the books I installed on my Kindle and I’m good.

I know any Sprinter-dwelling millennial reading this is cringing right now, but yeah, that’s what happened. Experiences are fun and I’ve traveled the world, but these days I get more enjoyment from sitting at home playing with my toys — and there’s not a damn thing wrong with it.

I don’t envy the generations that have followed mine. Right now, a lot sucks: the economy sucks, the music (mostly) sucks, the government sucks, the Supreme Court especially sucks. So does college debt and the real estate market. My parents’ generation started some bullshit and millennials and Gen Z are suffering the consequences, and that also sucks. And Gen X? Everyone forgets about us, but that’s fine. We made a lotta noise back in the day, and if we’ve made any sort of success of ourselves since, we’re generally content leveraging our social and financial power to continue to work for change.

But, as my grandmother used to say, kids these days got the shit end of the stick (my grandma was a special lady, for sure), so yeah… play music while the ship sinks, because unfortunately, there won’t be room on the door for everyone. I’m not knocking it, just don’t knock me for wanting to hang out at home (and by that I don’t just mean ‘where my heart is’).

Like many experience-chasers of today, I spent some of my twenties and most of my thirties having adventures, too. While most of my generational cohort was scrambling to sell a start-up, buy real estate and squeeze out a couple of kids, I walked out of professional life and happily lost the plot for a while.

For sure, I was seeking better ways of being then: I wanted to see what was beautiful in the world, and I thought it was “out there.” I fell in love with traveling, meeting new people, being blown away by spectacular nature, cycling through lovers, and picking up and moving elsewhere when the vibe changed. I sneered at people who took two week vacations because “no one gets to know a place in two weeks.”

And then, one day, I changed. And to be honest, it wasn’t a “one day” thing but an accumulation of factors that made me realize I was kind of over moving around.