I recently came across an Instagram Reel discussing a Vogue article. In an incredibly thoughtful piece titled “Why I (a Fashion-Lover) Am Giving Up Fashion — For Now,” Vogue Associate Production Manager and Contributor Cassandra Pintro explained her recent experience reading former Highsnobiety Digital Fashion Editor Alec Leach’s book, “The World Is On Fire But We’re Still Buying Shoes.”

As Pintro wrote, “my attachment to clothing stopped being about freedom of expression, and more about relevance.”

Immediately, I ran to Leach’s website to learn more about his book. In the excerpt alone, I read about Karl Marx’s commodity fetish, or “Warenfetischismus,” in fashion and the human obsession of owning items despite the negative energy it brings.

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Ironically, upon clicking “check out” on Leach’s book, I returned to Pintro’s article. Ultimately, she decided to pledge to stop shopping for the next 365 days — now on day 98 at the time of publication. I ask that you take a second to read this beautiful paragraph she wrote on why she’s encouraging others to join her in the pledge:

“I wanted to accept the challenge of knowing what ‘enough’ means to me. I want to pay close attention to what I go for and why, and get a clearer sense of myself and my style. I am hopeful that I will gain a healthier relationship with my own identity, and that I will know that I have more to say and offer the world than my consumption habits.”

Her pledge and open arms are so easily inviting, it almost makes me distrust her. A mere two steps (signing up and sticking to my promise) are needed to push myself and join Pintro, but instead, I feel scared.

Truthfully, it’s been a while since I’ve stopped in my tracks like this. I initially planned to write on what made fashion and art thrive despite geopolitical crises.

But I couldn’t shake the specificity and its loose tie to my identity out. The article, as intended, made me reexamine what I value most in fashion. Am I too falling into a trick mirror Alice in Wonderland style as I continue to confuse needs, wants and fulfilling my wardrobe dreams?

As I grew up and navigated my own stress, I started to confuse the moments of instantaneous joy and ultimately, along the way, decided that physical goods meant I cared about myself when, in reality, I didn’t.

Of course, I do care in the sense that I am hyper-aware of being perceived and often adopt a persona when I’m in public, but I don’t care about my health to my core. I work out six times a week to stop myself from feeling so antsy I can’t sleep at night; I routinely choose studying over friends over sleep; I pile heaps of responsibilities on my plate just to prove to myself that I can.

While fashion has become a hobby and a creative means to stretch my mind, I truly mean it when I say it has become therapy, too. My sweater has held me tight as I processed the passing of important people in my life and danced with me as I fulfilled my dream of seeing Earth, Wind & Fire.

And the harshest reality is that, despite all this, I have not earned my closet. While I have earned it in the way I have bought it with my hard-earned money from three on-campus jobs, I haven’t earned it in the way my mother has earned hers.

Looking back at one of my proudest articles last spring, “Why should you shop?,” I’ve come to realize that I’ve used fashion as a crutch to affirm myself not just as Hadyn, but as a daughter, a writer, a friend and as a human being. It is almost as if with every item I buy, another square inch of skin appears on a once-invisible blob, slowly turning me into the woman I want to be.

So, as I reflect on the guiding questions from my humanities courses my first year of high school — Who am I? What is my place in this world? What does it mean to be human? How, then, shall I live? — I’ve come to the closest answer since I was first asked such questions as an eager-to-please 14-year-old.

The human experience is to reflect, to hurt, and yet, to crave more. Whether this is the overall experiences of life, consumption in fashion or even this harsh and public reality check: This piece and personal exposé makes me human.

I understand I am incredibly fortunate to be in a place where so many people, places and experiences have helped guide me to this self-reflection and I acknowledge so much more is happening in the world than my self-centric, Sisyphus-like crisis of a 20-year-old, the anxiety that can accompany her elephant-like memory and her online shopping carts.

But for now, if this means taking one more thing off my plate — fruitless or fruitful, up to you — I am still willing to do so in order to open my mind to a new perspective, experience, song, book, dress, conversation or whatever I may stumble across.

And I am nothing but grateful for it.

Hadyn Phillips is a junior writing about fashion in the 21st century, specifically spotlighting new trends and popular controversy. Her column, “That’s Fashion, Sweetie,” runs every Wednesday.