There was a phase in my life where I became very interested in quality. Nice cookware, well-made shoes, a good mattress. The logic was that I'd been buying cheap things and replacing them repeatedly and if I just invested once in the right thing it would be both economical and satisfying.

Some of this was true. A good mattress is genuinely worth it. I have no notes.

But a lot of it turned into something else. A habit of seeking the next upgrade. A low-grade dissatisfaction with whatever I currently had because something marginally better existed. The improvement I'd bought last year started to feel normal after a few months and then invisible, and then my eye would catch something else.

This is a well-documented psychological phenomenon and knowing about it does almost nothing to protect you from it. I knew about it. Still fell into it.

The thing I have noticed about the purchase as an improvement loop is that the happiness it delivers is almost always shorter than anticipated. Not 0, but definitely shorter. You buy the thing, you feel good for a bit, and then it becomes furniture. Part of the background.

What does not seem to habituate in the same way is the anticipation. The looking forward to something. Which might be why buying things feels so good even when owning them is just okay.

I am not going to tell you to stop wanting nice things. That is both impossible and unnecessary. What I will say is that the belief that the right purchase will resolve some underlying feeling of not-quite-enoughness is almost certainly wrong. I tested that hypothesis pretty thoroughly. The feeling just moves to the next thing on the list.

The stuff that actually improved my quality of life turned out to be mostly free. Getting more sleep. Spending time outside. Having fewer things I was vaguely obligated to maintain.

The mattress stays though 😁