Learning to not beat myself up

Yesterday I bought myself an ipod nano. For the last 12 hours I’ve been feeling guilty about it, because it can’t be rationally justified. I just wanted it.

There is no reason not to buy it if I want it. My income and outgo fully supports this. We have no particular financial reason to not do it. But DH and I have always had a tendency to not buy things on the spur of the moment, not that this was even a spur of the moment thing. I got a free, lesser performing one about a year ago, and knew I wanted a better one. Then DD lost her MP3 player, and I wasn’t about to reward her carelessness with a new one, so she can actually have my old ipod.

But this is not about the stuff. It’s about this need to deny myself things, and not approaching these decisions rationally. In the same way I would either be binging or dieting, I’m either refusing to spend money or overanalyzing every purchase until I don’t buy many of them becuase DH and I can’t decide.

Yet I’m stuck in “should” mode, just like with eating habits. I made my decision, ordered the thing, and I now choose to enjoy it, experience the guilt, forgive myself for the guilt, and move on. Ouch. Still hurts a little, but I’m glad I recognized the issue and am making progress.