I had once told a story here about the time I had wanted to sell one of my radios (I had two at the time) but was stopped from doing so by my dad. I had felt that I had no need for two radios but my dad had taught me a valuable lesson. He had told me that night that selling something, not to buy another one better than that thing but just because I feel I don't need it at that moment is never a good idea.
I remember he had used himself as an example and asked me if I had ever seen him sold any of the stuff he owned. I eventually kept the radio for myself and it didn't take long for me to run back to that radio because the other one I had had suddenly gone bad.
To me those many years ago, that whole conversation that happened was all about a child's radio and nothing more, but the older I got, the more I got more meaning and understanding that exceeds just the radio conversation.
As a result of that conversation with my father those many years ago, I found myself no longer wanting to sell things I feel I don't need unless I have to, due to emergencies or maybe because I plan on buying a much more better version of that thing with the money I get from selling the old one. And what that did for me was that it stopped me from looking at the things I own as potential cash for emergencies.
A friend of mine had texted me this evening, telling me about his plans to sell his generator because he had some debts to clear and was getting threatened. At first I had thought he was pulling my legs but when I realized he was being serious, I had immediately asked him not to sell it. He has this huge size generator while I have the medium size and the small size, so I had offered him my small generator for him to sell to gather a little bit of money to pay for the main time while we rally around to pay the balance.
My reason for doing so was because I knew that him selling his huge generator would be at a lost because the people around here tend to take advantage of you when they realize you're trying to sell off your stuff because you're in desperate need of money. Unfortunately, selling my tiny generator was going to make little to no change based on the amount he needed to pay, so he ended up selling his huge generator instead.
The entire transaction was done in my room and throughout the whole time I made sure that both parties knew that I wasn't in support of the sale because aside from the fact that my friend got ripped off, he was selling it against his will.
And as I watched them walk out my room, I could tell he was sad. But what's even more sad was the fact that he's now kinda addicted to selling off what ever he has whenever he runs into any little form of trouble. He recently sold one of his phones last week, now he has sold his generator, there was a time last year when hesold his mirror, it was that bad. And what's worse is that he never uses the money for anything good because he always wants to double it in order to be able to buy back those things he sold and still have some money with him, but in the process, he loses it all to sport betting.
I guess at the end of it all, I'm not saying that selling your stuff when you have an emergency is a bad thing, we just shouldn't always see it as an option because the moment we do, it becomes an habit and then it becomes really hard to keep track of, then we completely lose control.