Rudi Zimmerer

What is the Gear Acquisition Syndrome?

The Gear Acquisition Syndrome (GAS) is the all-consuming desire to expand our collection of gear. People became bankrupt, divorced and took suicide through their GAS.

The idea is that we need the best equipment to make the best…
The reason might be if our equipment is not good enough we are not good enough.
Or we are unsatisfied and think that we can buy happiness, peace of mind…

How does GAS start?

We imagine:

We have bought that top camera and after some time we see better cameras.
There exist never any good camera for every application…
Still, we think the grass is greener at the neighbors garden…

Instead of shooting pictures we search the Internet for better equipment.
Finally, we find the camera or lens and we imagine that we could be much better with that camera or lens.

We get obsessed with our desire instead to shoot more pictures with our not perfect equipment.

And then we read all the reviews of that particular lens… some are good, some are bad…
We get paralyzed… What to do?

Ignore the bad reviews and to buy it in any way or even on credit?

We ring all shops to find our desired lens.
Finally, we find the right shop. We drive our car like a madman. We arrive sweating this shop and ask to try that lens on our camera…

But the shop owner denies… that is too risky….
He gives us his camera and we can shoot only inside.
We are so nervous that our hands are shaking and the pictures are blurred…

Still, we know that this lens will change our life for the best….

We start to bargain, and we can’t concentrate on that, because we are too identified…
Finally, we get that lens with a 5% discount.

We feel guilty that we have bought this overpriced lens.

And we can’t shoot that awesome pictures like the Pros…
We start to hate ourselves and our lens.

After some time we accept our lens…

We start to save money on everything because we are nearly bankrupt.

What to do?

When I am identified with any material good that I desire, I don’t purchase anything.
Because identification is always wrong for any material thing, not so with love or God.

If you have a spouse or friend ask him to control your money.

Give yourself the permission never to spend on one single thing over a specific amount.. like $300.

Instead of spending money for expensive equipment travel around.
And imagine to travel with heavy equipment is no fun at all…

Instead to buy better equipment to learn on your specific subject. For instance lesson in music will bring more benefit than an expensive guitar or learn Adobe Photoshop instead to get better camera gear!

Practice more.

Ask yourself why you are not happy?

My Video: What is the Gear Acquisition Syndrome? https://youtu.be/lIAlph06E0c
My Audio on Podcast: RELAX WITH MEDITATION or see link in the end.
My Audio: https://s3-ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/rudizimmerer/5/What+is+the+Gear+Acquisition+Syndrome.mp3

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *