Hacker News Reader

Comment by donatj | Hacker News Reader

I had an argument with my therapist about this.

My wife just gave birth to my daughter, we moved a bookshelf my grandfather built for me when I was born into her nursery and now my office is a mess, my books and such scattered. The mess is stressing me out.

I am looking for a bookshelf to replace it, and told him I haven’t found anything I thought would last the rest of my life for a reasonable price. He insists I don’t need something that will last that long and I am just resistant to change. I just don’t want to waste my money on garbage pressboard I am going to need to replace.

View on HN

I have been furnishing with IKEA (and Target and Home Depot and Costco) furniture for 20+ years, and still use dressers and coffee tables and bunk beds from back then, including the use by 2 toddlers. I even moved it across the country.

Maybe the melamine surface chips or scratches, but a little touch up marker makes it pretty unnoticeable, plus I do not care. Plus it was $20 to $200, so I can just replace it if it was damaged.

I would much rather spend the money saved on vacations and whatnot, I get no utility from a heavier table (in casual household use).

Don't you care that your table could be found along with this[1]

1. https://www.10000yearclock.net/learnmore.html

It sounds like your therapist is letting their personal opinions into your session. I'm not an expert, but that sounds like a professional no-no.

... If there is no alternative, maybe the therapist is correct

Perhaps, but (again, not an expert), I think the therapist should be asking questions (Socratic Method) to get the patient to come to that conclusion themselves.

Agree. In my experience Furniture therapists are too opinionated nowadays.

Is it really worth stressing yourself out over buying a hold-over bookshelf until you can find yourself a better one?

If you've got money for a therapist for this type of issue - it probably isn't.

You can get a custom-made bookshelf from Amish country for the cost of less than 5 therapy sessions.

My health insurance covers my therapy except for a small copay. I would not be going were I paying out of pocket.

A large part of therapy can be pointing out cognitive distortions.

The idea that you need a bookshelf to last you for the rest of your life is actually a pretty reasonable thing for a therapist to question.

People come into therapy with a lot of strongly held ideas that wind up negatively impacting their relationships and lives. E.g. winding up in fights with your spouse because you insist on a bookshelf to last a lifetime, while they just want to get something reasonably priced and move on from the issue.

So trying to figure out where the desire comes from for an object that lasts a lifetime is actually a pretty reasonable therapeutic path of exploration. It's the old serenity prayer -- "the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference".

There might be a lot of wisdom here in deciding that reasonably-priced bookshelves don't last a lifetime anymore, that that's not something you can change or want to spend time and effort on changing, and deciding you can finally be OK with that. To just make the choice to either buy a cheap one that doesn't last or an "overly expensive one" that does, accept it, and move on.

To me it sounds like someone who wants internet strangers to agree with them in opposition to their therapist. Not knowing any of the other details that's as far as I'm willing to go with the assuming.

I wonder if commenters on Psych News question the professional judgement of IT workers based on second hand reports of their behavior.

Top level commenter here - for what it’s worth, as a someone who is perpetually indecisive, I enjoy getting my therapists opinions. He used to be a bicycle mechanic and has a very down to earth attitude towards therapy. Honestly one of my major life stressors is just general home maintenance and he’s offered some pretty great advice.

My solution was to give up and DIY. I wouldn't dare attempt anything more complicated but a bookcase is among the simplest projects to take on.

The plan B which we used for some things in the house was a custom build. (Not meaning to shill or anything but they did a fantastic job and in your shoes I would explore their bookcases: https://www.dutchcrafters.com/Amish-Bookcases/cat/146). The prices are up there but I figure are about the same inflation-adjusted as what my grandpa would have paid 80 years ago.

There's the famous Adam Savage quip about "Buy cheap, then if you use it re-buy quality."

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=usB6jqa4Yt4&t=24s

Which I guess in your case boils down to...

Would you rather not have bookcases while you're searching for the perfect one?

Or would you rather have bookcases you aren't thrilled about, while you decide/look for more quality ones?

I'd hazard from the limited information, it might make sense to find the cheapest thing you can't push over, ASAP. Rip the band-aid off.

I bought quite a few of the Hemnes bookshelves[0] from Ikea. They aren't garbage pressboard, but also not terribly expensive. They actually replaced the garbage pressboard shelves I had that cost like $20 each, because I got tired of fixing up the back. The back panel is fiberboard, but it feels like HDF, not MDF.

0:https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/hemnes-bookcase-black-brown-lig...

Bookshelves are pretty low-traffic, so I don’t see why an Ikea one wouldn’t last as long as you needed it to. I think you’ll probably get tired of the look of it before the structure fails in any meaningful way.

> The mess is stressing me out.

> I just don’t want to waste my money on garbage pressboard I am going to need to replace.

If I may propose an alternative, you could buy the cheapest bookshelf you can find just to have your office organized while you search for a quality one to last decades or centuries :)

Or if you have the time and interest you could even make a makeshift bookshelf instead. There are lots of tutorials on youtube for this.

> He insists I don’t need something that will last that long and I am just resistant to change

This is a bit of a red flag. Was this during a therapy session? They shouldn't be giving this type of advice, not to mention 'insisting' on it.

This is second hand commentary. We don't know what the therapist actually said, just how the poster is representing it, just that the poster interprets it as 'insisting'.

I'd bet you can get a local handyman to make a bookshelf out of boards and screws if you're concerned about quality. But of course, wood isn't going to cost today what it cost when you were born.

Even if you know that something is objectively better, if the majority of the market doesn’t agree, you’re going to find yourself spending lots of time and energy going against everyone else. At a certain point you just need to accept that that’s how things are and go with the flow, or take it upon yourself to really “fix” things, which will probably mean taking it on as a full time job or hobby.

So in this case, you can get a commercial bookcase that is probably good enough to last quite a while (and be able to spend a lot of time with your new child), or spend a lot of time on the garage learning woodworking so you can build a “real” one.

Or wait until the new child is older, and spend a lot of time building a new bookshelf with them.

I would tell my therapist I find it odd that they're voicing their opinions rather than letting me arrive at conclusions on my own.

I still use the ikea dresser and bookshelf I had in high school.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com