Following the Whims

If you’re on social media, you may have noticed that “whimsy” is trending. It’s become a thing where people share videos of themselves wearing long, flowing dresses and fairy wings while shopping for groceries. Or they’ve begun sending postcards or scrapbooking. Some people are encouraging adults to build forts.

As a super serious lady, I love whimsy because it’s the counterbalance that I need. I could always use more play in my life. But what I appreciate even more than general whimsy is following my whims and noticing the delight when things work out with ease and flow. Here’s an example. I have a juicer that I literally never use, so I decided to sell it. AI helped me figure out the pricing, product description, heck, even the best time to post about it on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. Has that juicer sold? No! It has not!

It’s been months at this point, and I still own that juicer. There was no “whim” involved with selling it. There was no strong impulse in me that said, “Do this.” Instead, it was more of a logical thing, a “should” thing to clear space in my cabinet, be practical, make money, etc.

I also have a hat I don’t like anymore that has been sitting around my apartment for months. I haven’t known what to do with it. Sell it? Give it away? Recycle it? On Thursday, on a whim – and I do mean a whim – I decided to post it on eBay. I could have posted it on Poshmark or another online retailer, but my gut said, “Post it to eBay!” I didn’t do any research. I didn’t ask AI for help. I copied and tweaked the description from the company store where I purchased the hat new, and then I listed it.

Based on my experience with the juicer, I expected the hat to languish on eBay for weeks, if not months. Lo and behold, the hat sold the very next day. Is it because I priced it too low? Maybe, but I did use eBay’s suggested price, and given I thought about donating the hat, even receiving a few dollars feels like a win.

I could talk about spiritual philosophy here and how and why things happen in the material world, but I’m not. What I’m more interested in sharing is the reminder that there’s a place for whims. Those small, impulsive actions, the gut-knowings, can be incredibly powerful. They don’t always lead us in the places we want to go – I sent some query letters to literary agents on a whim, and it led nowhere, for instance – but it’s important to follow those actions nonetheless. There’s something liberating about pushing aside the mind and not thinking too hard about what we’re doing. For an overthinker like me, it’s exactly the medicine I need.

I dream of a world where we recognize we can do the rational, logical things and they may still not work out. A world where we engage our childlike sense of wonder and play. A world where we don’t take everything so seriously. A world where we follow our whims and see where they lead.

Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.