Tips to cure the Gear Acquisition Syndrome

What is G.A.S?

Gear acquisition syndrome is the feeling of urge or a need to acquire new gears or gadgets without any proper thinking or research. Which leads to the spending of that hard-earned money for some useless thing which is the result of a single decision made without any thinking.

Who can have this syndrome?

• Photographers
• Guitarists
• People interested in technology

Photographers

The G.A.S is common in photographers as it starts with the beginners who bought his/her first camera and starts exploring all the possibilities of that camera. Once the person has done some time with that camera, new ones come to market which will be having all the same features except for one feature which has improved a little bit for the sake of marketing.

So, it gives the urge of buying things like more lenses, flash, tripod, different bags and the list goes on. This is because of online sites with the so-called offers on these things and the craze of buying things online is also another cause for this leading to spending money on unwanted things. Also, the thinking of that gears are much important than your skills, but once you understand that gears are just a helping tool to achieve what is already painted in your minds.

Guitarists

Once you buy your first guitar and learn from it then you will move to another or a higher end with more features and good quality, like if you have started with acoustics then you will move to electric for which you need amplifiers to play with of some high-end speakers. As the time passes you will search for more things like different types of picks, amps with different settings and different types of strings and pedals for much more different sounds.

People interested in Technology

In this age of technology growing at a rapid rate as day by day new gadgets come with various different features to amuse the customers. We all need the new phone with higher processing power even as we use it for daily uses like calls, texting, music and some other regular things. For companies selling these products are just number game for selling more and more.

Why it happens?

For any syndrome to happen, there are a lot of things which contribute, such as online sales and offers which give an impression that this is the time to buy this thing. Along with this also the companies releasing new models every now and then for increasing sales. 

How to control it?

Controlling it is difficult if you have an  access to these things: 

• Credit card
• Unlimited internet
• Free time

As all the above things are the main reason for G.A.S to be part of your life and ruin your things in life. Online researches can be done before buying gears. Also most important question to ask yourself is that “do I need that now?” as at that moment we will feel the urge/need to buy that but later you will regret it, so think and ask yourself it again and again that do you really need it or not.

Things like cell phones, cameras, gaming consoles and etc. will be developed for ages and we will see daily a new thing embedded for making another task easy.

Finally!!!

It is all up to our decisions! that we need it or not as the companies will be making more and more things to attract customers. We have to ask our self that what better things that new gadget has than my current one and how much it can ease my daily life. It is all based on our decision and how we can control the urges to spend the savings on that not so much important product. For this to happen first thing we should understand that it is all in our mind that buying new gear can get you better without learning the proper skills needed for those things.

Written by Rajeev.K (austinrajiv)
I am a simple person with interest in riding bikes (with protective gears), music (rap & metal), writing (about things that i experience), photography, fitness, food (vegetarian), that's all !!  live and let live.