That hand-me-down jacket has someone else’s stories in the pockets. Wear it like a compliment.

Something passed down was chosen for you, usually by someone who thought it would suit you or that you needed it. It also arrives with a history: it was somewhere before you, on someone, doing things. New clothing has none of that; it is a blank, and blankness is not the thing people value most about what they wear.

Wear it as though it were selected rather than left over, because it was. Ask the person where they got it and what they did in it, since that story now belongs to you too. And when you outgrow something good, pass it on properly. Somebody else gets the next chapter.