After getting into the EDC scene a few years ago, I think I can finally say I've found my perfect gear. I have a handful of items that I absolutely love using/carrying and can't see how anything could come along to replace them. When I first got into the concept of having an EDC, I was still unaware of what I really needed in my gear. I didn't know I loved my small gear or that I loved having colorful stuff. This made me buy tons of different things in all sorts of designs to narrow down what I liked and didn't like. I'd say I'd first find a gem in like every 5 purchases. Years and years later, I've found that I've finally hit a stable point in my EDC where I'm pleased with the specific pieces of gear I'm carrying and my EDC as a whole. What is there left to do after you find your perfect gear? I've been thinking about that a lot lately, and for us gear nuts, I think that's to keep buying new stuff.
I think on one side, you keep trying new gear in hopes that you find something better than what you consider perfect. Maybe the more practical approach is to stop your gear buying, because there's no point since you've already found your perfect stuff. We're all gear nuts though, so it's kind of hard to not buy anymore cool gear. I recently got an Ontario Rat 2 and didn't expect to love it as much as I have. If I had written off buying new knives forever since I love my Ladybug so much, I would've never tried out this sick knife. Interests change over time, so it's completely possible that you love one thing during the month but hate it the next. Plus, you never know you'll like something until you try it. Perfection is a really weird concept overall. In theory, nothing is ever truly perfect so there's always something better out there.
I'll probably scale back my gear buying in the future, but there's way I'll ever be able to stop buying gear completely. It's nice to keep adding solid pieces of gear to my rotation. In order to find those solid things though, I find that I have to try tons of things before I find the few gems. My standards are super high nowadays since I know what my perfect gear looks like. Back in the good old days where I found a gem in every 5 purchases, I'd say currently it takes me about 10 purchases to find something I really love. If a piece of gear has a few minor quirks, odds are I'm not going to keep it since it's less than perfect. I buy a decent amount of gear, so if I were to keep everything, my collection would be full of crap that I wouldn't want to carry regularly. I used to like keeping a huge collection of knives, but now I like to have a smaller collection with more quality things I really love. That's kind of why you all always see me bash knives a lot. If it's not a knife that is as good as my Ladybug, it's not good enough for me to keep around. A lot of the blades I try aren't terrible by any means. They just don't really fit my standards anymore. I used to be very lenient with how I felt about certain knives since I didn't know much back then. I can be more picky now, simply because I've tried so much.
I'm not sure if any of that made sense, but I think the biggest point is that my standards have obviously risen since I joined the EDC community. I've tried hundreds of pieces of gear by now, so it's only natural that I like different stuff now than I first used to. I've gotten to the point where I can really pinpoint exactly what I want in a knife/flashlight/multitool/etc. If you've been keeping up with me since I first started doing all this knife stuff, you've seen a lot of my tastes change and develop. That's a really cool journey to me, and I'm really happy I know what I want in my gear now. I hope you enjoyed reading all this. Thanks for looking!
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