“Throw out all your socks. Every last one. Now go buy new pairs that actually match and don’t have holes in them.”
– Neil Strauss, NYT Best Selling Author
If your socks are more than 6 months old toss them and buy new ones. Yes all of them.
6 months is a guideline. It depends on how often you wear a given pair of socks. If you are wearing them more than once a week, they won’t last long. If you have a lot of socks they might last longer.
If they have holes in them toss them.
If you don’t know when you last bought socks…then it is time to replace them.
Principle
Things wear out. The problem is we don’t notice the little, everyday things we are putting a lot of wear and tear on. So these things, like you favorite pair of shoes, or your socks, are probably way past their dead date. We’re waiting for them to fail in some dramatic fashion before we get rid of them. Truth is they’ve stopped doing their best for us long before they fail on us.
Socks are a great example to prove this point. Just do the experiment. Get rid of your old socks and get new ones. Socks don’t cost that much so your risk isn’t that high. I believe you’ll notice the difference immediately. Your feet will let you know how much they love you as soon as the new socks encase them.
Corollary
Lots of other things wear out and we don’t notice. This is especially true for everyday things. Here’s a few things that you may be using that have worn out.
Shoes. According to REI “As a general rule, most running and walking shoes last up to 500 miles.”. If you are relatively sedentary you’re probably doing about a mile a day. Which means if you wear a shoe every day that’s a couple of years. If you are active doing say 2-3 miles a day, they wear out in a year.
Chairs. Speaking of sedentary. How old is your desk chair? I remember a joke at one office I worked at. When someone quit, we’d see who got to their chair first because it didn’t have the same butt print in it. That means the padding on our chairs – where we were spending 6-8 hours a day in, were so worn the foam was conformed to our derrières. This is also true of car seats.
Underwear. If your feet are ecstatic about new socks, what about the other parts of your body strapped into the same garments week after week. Guys, the boys will thank you. Ladies, the girls will be much happier in a new home.
Photo by Michael Wright on Unsplash
