A comfortable bed
They come in all sizes and shapes; the romantic four poster, the stringy charpoy, the innocuous bed-cum-sofa or the futon. Beds are a part of our psyche, they play an important role from the day we are born till the last… And we do spend one-third of our lives sleeping.
Spend on making that bed comfortable. Get a bed you like, whether in brass or good wood, with the subtle smell of the forests coming through the varnish. Get good mattresses and pillows. For your body to mend while you sleep. For you to be able to sleep, in the first place. Get pretty sheets… whatever works for you, prints, colours, whites, satin, after all it is your private Eden, your place away from the rest of the world. So, think before you cut back on the bed.
A Broadway Play
Ouch, now we are talking dollars and pounds! Why, when there are musicals on TV, almost as resplendent?
Well, because a play is a play. And in a Broadway, it is a play. The sets, the scenes, the costumes, the sheer magnitude of the thought that goes into a good production is mind boggling. Stretching the limits of imagination, pushing the frontiers of experience. Then there is the sheer energy of a live show—the performers, all too human with their mannerisms and their highs and lows, their interactions. The audience around you, responding in a tidal wave of contrasting emotions, now laughing as one, now drooping in sync with the emotion on stage. So don’t stint. Buy great seats, and go.
And if Broadway is not quite your cuppa, a classic dance by a maestro could be it. So spend, spend, spend. It will pay you back in memory many times over!
Annual Holidays
Come on, I don’t need to tell you. They rejuvenate the mind and relax the body even if it includes a punishing rock climb. Work improves on return. Of course some back to work blues are to be expected but once they vanish, there is renewed energy. Plus a holiday gives you perspective. Suddenly, stresses seem smaller and therefore you do end up managing them well on your return.
A hand-worked garment/a work of art
Anything that makes you wonder, that makes you feel you have a treasure. It can be a beautifully embroidered kurta, a shawl with an intricately woven pattern, a fabulously fitted jacket. It can be a piece of crystal, a Morano goblet for which you paid an arm and a leg. If it excites you, it is worth the money. Pieces rare and beautiful are, as Keats said, things of joy forever. And money invested in them blossoms into multiplications of joy. So don’t stint when something catches your fancy, just because it strains your budget. Money comes and goes; but beauty endures.
I could go on, but won’t. Let me leave you to add your own items to this ‘never regret to spend on’ list!
This was first published in the April 2013 issue of Complete Wellbeing.
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