Starting in college I started to like nice things.  I bought nice pens, when I started working it became clothes and after working a couple of years, I got into collecting watches.  I was looking at an advertisement in the Wall Street Journal for a Patek Phillipe watch.  It was a simple design.  Porcelain white dial with roman numerals, sub-second hand, 18kt case, with a leather strap.  The bezel had a pattern called hobnail and the model was Calatrava.  The ads I saw in the Wall Street Journal said things like – “Owning a Patek doesn’t tell people about you, it tells you something about yourself” or “You never really own a Patek, you just hold it for the next generation”  I didn’t know how much it cost but I wanted one.  I cut out the ad and put in on my cubical wall.  After working two years at a CPA firm (right out of college), I was hired by another firm.  To celebrate I bought the watch in the ad.  It was wonderful.  A mechanic watch.  When I wound it, I could feel the gears turn and see the watch come to life.  I bought the watch in 1987.  I still have it, but after that, I became fascinated with mechanical watches.  I became friends with a watch maker and he told me the top five class A watches were – Patek Phillipe, Audemars Piguet, Jaeger La Coultre, Breguet, and Vacheron.  He said Rolex was a class B watch.  He was a watch maker, so he knew.  I’ve owned over a dozen nice watches over the last twenty five years. I was in heaven back then, but now I see that it was a hell.  I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars on watches.  I’ve gotten into credit card debt for watches.  I’ve over-extended myself and once sold a watch after only having it for a month.  I lost about $3,000.

After buying the first nice watch, I craved a second one and then a third and so on.  I sent the first Patek I bought back to the factory, because I wanted different hands on it.  I remember checking the time on it every morning for a couple of weeks to see if it was accurate (remember calling “p-o-p-c-o-r-n” on the phone?)  I would worry about it because I would bump it at times.  I never told people how expensive my watch was, but I loved the recognition I would receive when people recognized the brand.  It caused me suffering when people thought it was a Seiko watch (which is a good watch, I own two).  I had a jewelry store sales person hold a particular watch I was wearing that day in his hands to feel the weight because he thought it was fake (platinum is heavier than steel).  After he held my watch and looked at it, he was nicer to me.  It seemed people questioned my ability to purchase a quality watch which caused me suffering.  I have a watch which I’m afraid to wear because of it’s value, so I had to buy insurance for it.  After a year, I decided that it was too expensive to wear.  One day I was adjusting the time on that watch and the hour hand slipped and now when the watch is set to noon, the hour hand is between the 12 and 1 markers.  It will cost me at least $1,000 to get it serviced.  Since I have so many watches I didn’t bother, but it still bugs me.  When I would dress sloppy and go shopping, I would wear my nice watch in hopes that I would get some recognition.  Sometimes I was self-conscious so I would pull my sleeve over the watch.

After practicing Dhamma for a few years, I can look back in my life and see that I wanted nice things because I had low self-esteem.  I thought if I bought something nice (like a watch or pen), people would respect me, admire me, or treat me nicer.  This was confirmed by the few times people saw my watch, knew what it was, and started talking to me like we were good friends.

Now my perception has changed.  My life has changed (after getting married and having to raise my son).  I still like nice watches, but I don’t desire them like I use to.  I know that they don’t determine who I am nor does it give me a higher status in life.  I use to laugh and look down on people who wore fake watches.  I would say buy what you can afford, but don’t wear a fake one.  But who was I to judge them.  I wore a real one, yes, but I got myself in debt to possess it, so I was also a fake.  Now that I am starting to see the suffering associated with attachment, I’m starting to let go of things and I don’t get so obsessed with possessing thing.

I am planning to give my Rolex to Jason when he graduates from college, but after wearing it again, I thought about keeping it but really in the end, I can’t take it with me.  So why should I hold on.a