A Pepto-Bismol-toned reminder of my mistakes

There is a pink shirt the shade of Pepto-Bismol hanging in my closet. It is collarless with white pleats in front, like a man’s tuxedo shirt, and white cuffs. I bought it mostly because it was marked down to $9.99. Is there anyone who doesn’t know that the absolute worst reason to buy something is that it’s on sale?

I think I knew as I was taking the cotton shirt from the reduced rack at The Gap all those years ago and walking with it to the cash that it was not a wise purchase. Indeed, I have never worn it and probably never will. Yet, I hang on to it.

I keep the shirt hanging in the centre of the closet, directly in my line of sight. It is there as a talisman — a reminder of mistakes I have made, a kind of marker for my regrets.

I believe we nearly always know we are making mistakes, even as we are making them. And here I’m talking not only about questionable fashion decisions: We know when we are being selfish or mean-spirited. We know when we are taking short cuts or helping ourselves to what is not ours. We know when we are in a relationship or a job or a space that is wrong for us. We are masters of rationalization, most of us. We equivocate and we delude ourselves — but we know wrong at a hundred paces.

There are people who, through tragedy or bad luck or where they are born, find themselves in terrible circumstances. The rest of us are the sum total of the choices we make. And sometimes they are choices we come to regret.

I thought, for instance, that I might have a career in science or medicine — at university I majored in neurobiology and comparative physiology — but I never worked hard enough to forge that path for myself.

Once, in the produce section of the Metro store on Queen Mary Rd. a couple of years after starting my job as a reporter, I encountered the mother of a good friend from high school days. I hadn’t seen her in some time and she asked what I was doing. I told her — and to this day remember the disappointment in her voice as she replied, “I had you figured for some kind of professional.”

People I know check items off bucket lists and have all kinds of adventures. I, on the other hand, have always been hobbled by an unwillingness to take even the smallest risk. Not taking risks means you allow life to simply happen to you. My father came to Canada as a young man with little but the determination to be his own boss — and, for the better part of half a century, he was. I, on the other hand, have always been someone’s employee.

A couple of weeks back, I came across one of those silly articles about how to make order in your closet in less than 30 minutes. Haven’t worn it in six months? Toss it. Makes you feel fat? Get rid of it. Have it in more than one colour? Choose. To me, prescriptive pieces like that are almost always nonsense. Were it that easy, none of us would have closets stuffed with ill-advised wardrobe items or wear shoes that pinch. By extension, we would not sit on uncomfortable sofas at home or engage in battles of wits

with recalcitrant toasters.

Were it that easy, the Japanese decluttering and organizing phenomenon Marie Kondo would not have sold millions of copies of her book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, or its illustrated sequel, named for her practice of encouraging people to examine their belongings and surround themselves only with items that “spark joy.”

As New York Magazine design editor Wendy Goodman told ABC News about her, “She’s very much about having a relationship, in a very direct way, with objects and coming to terms with the things that you actually need.” Someone like Kondo — her acolytes call themselves “konverts” — rises up only in a society bent on acquisition. Her success is evidence, of course, that acquiring possessions is not the road to fulfilment or happiness.

That ugly pink shirt in my closet is a reminder of many things: of the $10 I should never have spent on it, for one, and of the downside of buying something merely because of its price tag. These days, when I’m tempted by an item on sale, I ask myself if I’d consider it at full price. Most of the time the answer is no — and it stays where it is.

That ugly pink shirt is a warning of how easy it is to make poor choices. It is an admonition that all actions have consequences. It obliges me to acknowledge that I have made other misguided decisions and that, if I live long enough, I will make more.

I want to believe, though, that experience has yielded some small measure of wisdom. It has made me realize, among other things, that loyalty and friendship are inviolate, and that just because a loving relationship isn’t perfect doesn’t mean it is fatally flawed — and it has taught me to never, ever, buy another Pepto-Bismol-coloured shirt.