Your stuff is junk.

Ouch. That stings!

This particular comment was made about the camping gear I’ve been hauling around for a couple of years now but it can be applied to anything. Your clothes, bag, car, children’s toys, gadgets, and even your business are all dibs for comments like this.

There will ALWAYS be someone who feels like your stuff is less-than or tries to make you feel inferior. When you get stung, it’s important to remember what your stuff means to you and to anyone you touch.

Why I Laughed. After A Few Minutes.

My camping gear got my little family through the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. My 16-year old son and 4-year old daughter had fans, purified drinking water, bug repellent, non-perishable snacks, etc. long before the disaster relief angels showed up. Even then, it was nice to be able to turn some assistance down because we honestly didn’t need it and maybe someone else did.

But we’d been enjoying our regular dose of Vitamin N – nature – while camping and on roadtrips long before the hurricane hit.

You really can walk into any Walmart or Academy – or even, gasp!, Goodwill – and buy a lot of what I’ve got but really, what’s wrong with that? Heck, I even encouraged it long before someone hurled their opinion at me by sharing what I have and posting my suggestions on car camping!

Upgrade, Downgrade, Samegrade

Let’s say you have an older but reliable Chevrolet Suburban Z71 4×4 (like I do). At a light, someone in a Ferrari pulls up beside you and yells, “you’ve got junk!”

Should you ditch your surprisingly good gas mileage getting, clear titled, family-friendly, car camping-customized vehicular baby for someone else’s two-seater sports car? Only if you wanted the change.

Notice I didn’t say “upgrade”?

It’s a change because – depending on who you ask – it may or may not be something that’s better than.

A Ferrari, while nice, would not suit my little family very well at all.

• I’m a single mom with two kids. I’m not about to put a child in the trunk or the roof!
• We like to boondock (primitive camp). Where would our gear go?!
• We go off-roading in rural areas sometimes. That poor car would get hung up somewhere!

For someone with a Lotus, it may be a samegrade but for me, a Ferrari would be a major downgrade. Not because of the quality but because of the suitability.

Who Really Cares?

All the blah blah above and we get to the REAL question: who really cares, yo?

Ultimately, it’s your stuff.

You are the one who needs to be able to use it, do it, play with it, eat it, camp with it, etc. This isn’t to say I encourage you to put out a crap course to scrounge a few bucks or to go camping with completely inappropriate gear but you’ve got to start from where you are, with what you have, and with what you know.

You’ll get the change to upgrade/downgrade/samegrade soon enough. Just make sure it’s YOUR CHOICE and not something you were pressured into by someone else.