From the Archives: Charlotte Mason on how not to be a ShoppingZilla (and read to the end, it's more than shopping)

First posted January 2015. Based on Charlotte Mason's book Ourselves, Book II, "The Scope of Will."

If you don't keep them out, they will sneak in.

 "If we keep the will in abeyance, things and affairs still present themselves, but we allow instead of choosing. We allow a suggestion from without, which runs with our nature, to decide for us. There would not seem to be much difference between the two courses; but most ruined lives and ruined families are the result of letting allowance do duty for will-choice." 

Does that mean you have to go to a lot of fuss every time you make a choice? What if you just make a typical choice for your own lifestyle? Do you have to refuse everything that is "normal?"

"But, you will say, he has not chosen at all! Yes, he has; he has chosen with modesty and good sense to follow the lead set by the common sense of his class."

It's worse to go in with no ideas and let yourself be "sold" something, than to go in with a good but not eye-popping idea and stick to it.

"Or, again, there is the man whose conceit leads him to defy general usage and startle the world with checks and ties, feeling that he is a mighty independent fellow. He is merely obeying the good conceit he has formed of himself, and his daring ventures come of allowance and not of choice." 

If you're not an EverydayZilla, you won't be a BrideZilla.

"The question of a lady's shopping is only a by-issue, but it is well worth considering; for, alas! the shopping scene at Madame Mantalini's is of too frequent occurrence, and is as damaging to the nerves and morale of the purchaser as to those of the weary shopwomen."

Again, it's more than shopping.

"Are we going after the newest and cheapest things in morals and religion? are we picking up our notions from the penny press or from the chance talk of acquaintances? If we are, they are easily come by, but will prove in the end a dear bargain."