As a kid I remember that stickers used to be the epitome of a free gift. Every book, every cereal box, every toy would brag that they contained free stickers inside. I would rip apart the packaging and hold the stickers as if they were gold. Something about them drew us in. As much as I wanted them, I always hesitated to stick them somewhere. It seemed too big of a commitment. Years later, my friends would give me Van Gogh stickers and I would show the same hesitation. One of my friends laughed and called it commitment issues. Maybe that’s what it was. I stuck a few on my laptop. 

Now, I look around the classroom and I see the various laptops and their stickers and I wonder what purpose they serve. Human beings have a certain obsession with making things theirs. There’s power in possession, that’s what every person instinctively knows. Laptop stickers are a perfect example of this. In a world where identical products are made for consumers, I can stick this small piece of paper on its surface and make it mine. But they also gave something about us away. People would know the Van Gogh stickered laptop was mine, they would know I like Van Gogh, I would have to tell them how I got the stickers. So I stuck a few on my laptop, and one I carried around in my phone cover because I was afraid of regret. 

Now, stickers lay around in heaps at every college event and fair. I lift them up and study them and realise that I never exactly knew what they are. They all have this plastic feel, and have an adhesive at the back - which will only work once. Something about their glue at the back will stop working if you try to take it off and then place it somewhere else. Some of them are weak, so you have to carefully peel it off lest it tears. A sticker is temporary if you use it too many times, but it will be forever only once. 

It is possible that the way children treat their stickers shape the way they go about life. Kids who used their stickers carelessly, placed them wherever they felt like at that moment treated life that way. The ‘Carpe Diem’ ones who lived every moment like it was their last. Their argument against any hesitation would forever be, but what if you regretted not using them? This, I’ll agree, is a fair argument. For all my hesitation I lost most of the stickers from my childhood, unused. Perhaps some kids are born hesitating every decision, being afraid of permanence forever and this begins with stickers while others have the gift of caring less. 

I received the Van Gogh stickers as a parting gift. After high school, two friends of mine told me to remember them by the stickers. One friend’s I stuck on my laptop and another’s I didn’t, choosing to keep it in my phone cover. By this summer, the first friend and I were laughing about all the “Remember when-s?” and the second friend had her own life that I was not a part of. So, I stopped carrying her sticker and realised that sometimes hesitation is good, sometimes it means something. If one uses a sticker, and then regrets it they are reminded every time they look at the permanently stuck piece of paper. I suppose, they reflect the nature of time, once done nothing can be undone. Once the glue wears off, it can’t be forced together again.