Material Choices

I drove by a Starbucks the other day and was struck by something.

Most of the outside was made of glass. This was a material choice.

It was winter time, so darkness had set in early, and where this particular Starbucks was located, there wasn't much else around it.

Since it was open when I drove by, all the light from the inside shone through the glass to the outside.

It looked like a lighthouse. A literal beacon of comfort.

The material choice evoked a feeling.

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Pick up any book, crack it open, and you'll notice a few things.

The font type, the font size, the space between the lines, and the width of the margins.

These are all material choices.

Compare how you feel looking at a book that has small font, densely packed, with tight margins, to a book that is the opposite.

Each evoke different feelings.

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I own several colours of the exact same t-shirt.

Yet this past season, when I had to facilitate a particular kind of workshop at work, I found myself wanting to wear just one colour.

Similarly, I own several colours of the exact same workout clothes.

Yet whenever I'm doing a rowing test (once every six weeks), I choose to wear the same combination of colours.

Colours are material choices. They evoke feelings.

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Material choices are all around us.

What we choose, often dictates how we feel.

That means if you want to feel different, choose different.