From: B.D.

10/28/2019

Not Owning footwear

The last footwear that I owned also ended up in a charity shop. I had an intermediate phase though where it was in a cupboard at my parent’s house, 60 miles away from me for a few years. One day my mum asked me if she should just give it away, and I said that was a great idea, so she did.

I’m very proud of not keeping any shoes at home, which I can now, as of a couple of years ago describe instead as not owning any.

Getting to this state was gradual but an aspiration for.a while. I think it is hugely important though because if you wear shoes for any reason you are declaring that it’s something that you are in principle willing to do, and that leads to people taking it personally when you choose not to if they think you should, or at least pointing out that you’re making a choice that you don’t necessarily have to make.

When you are in a situation where you wear shoes for work and people know about it, then they might say “how come you care more about work than my feelings?” or if you put shoes on for a special occasion, people will assume you’re doing it out of respect and then might say “you respected that person for their special occasion, but not me?”. But if you can honestly say that you never wear shoes, and mean it literally, qualifying that with “I don’t keep any at home” or “I don’t own any” then people tend to accept it much more easily as they don’t perceive there being any sort of hierarchy of importance that they then might feel aggrieved about not being at the top.

Plus it gives you the confidence to face anything and anyone because that’s how you are all the time. No more do you ever ask yourself ahead of a new situation “maybe I’ll regret it if I don’t at least bring some with me this time” which not only has a very high likelihood of you putting them on (after all, if you have them with you you are indicating that you are not completely against the idea of wearing them, undermining anything you say about not wearing shoes), but at best brings a nagging “should I shouldn’t I” internal debate for the entire duration of whatever it is you’re doing.

So if shoes aren’t literally solving a real safety issue at work for you, then it’s a really good idea to have the aim not to wear them to work any more. Once you achieve that, you can put them away for long enough that you’ll soon realize that they can easily be removed from your life altogether.

Myself, I’m a self employed musician and I also do a lot of private teaching. I no longer take on any work through agents which is great because now if I ever meet a new client who doesn’t like me turning up barefoot they can’t then phone up the agent and complain and threaten to badmouth their business. All they can do is just say they don’t want to work with me, which is great because I don’t waste any time and can use my time working with someone else instead. Of course most of the time being the only barefooter most people ever meet is a massive advantage, because it makes you memorable, so anything you do well is magnified, and it makes you come straight to people’s minds when they need someone to work with again. I’ve often met other musicians who say they recognize my toes from somewhere before where they heard me play and are glad to have a chance to introduce themselves properly to me this time.

If you’re not self employed then I suppose you might forever be worried about the people you work for, but there’s a strategy you can employ there too. If you put shoes on just for your time on site at work, first of all make sure people see you putting them on before you arrive and taking them off when you leave. Let them realize that you’re normally barefoot and your shoes are just for them, just as ties are for a lot of people.

Then next step is to slip your shoes off while at work and let people see you walking around the office without them.

Once they’re used to that, then you can slip them off early on in the morning and let them stay off all day.

Once they’re used to that they’ll not need to see you put them on at all. So you won’t need to bring them with you.

At any stage anyone not happy with it can interrupt you and tell you they don’t like it, and you then have an option to do what you’re told and keep your job with no harm done. Then you can decide whether you really like that job or if you want to look for another one.

If you go freelance you can take your time building up a network of clients and associates who know you as a barefooter and you can eventually get to the point where you stop taking on work that insists on shoes. I don’t apply for jobs any more. If someone gets in touch asking me to come and work in their school, I go along barefoot knowing that that’s not what they would expect from someone applying to work there. But because they asked me not the other way around, I know I can say confidently that that’s how I am and if they don’t want to work with that then I won’t take offense and go on my merry way. I have nothing to lose and they can’t accuse me of wasting their time. I also have a lot to gain because if things go well then I’ve got a working relationship with new people who expect me to be barefoot and want me either in spite of it or because of it. I do occasional work in one primary school and one Saturday music school and the only questions I get about my feet are about what it’s like and how much I must enjoy not wearing shoes.

So I highly highly recommend not owning footwear. It changes your life in such a wonderful way and puts you in a massively strong negotiating position because everyone knows that there’s only one state you’re ever in, so they stop worrying about it or trying to change it and instead focus on who you are as a person.