Purchase delivered: Experience

There are conversations that linger in your mind for a while after the speakers have returned to their daily lives, and recently these conversations have been resonating with the same frequency and heartbeat of my questions to life.

In the last month or so, I have been either the initiator or participator of engaging discussions whose individual impacts on me have transformed into compounding and increasingly urgent needs for me to know why I am where and what I am. I used to think when reminiscing on old times and looking at time-stained photographs, that we tend to believe that each instance in our lives are the best that our lives are, up till then. But frequent and subsequent contemplations of this theory convinced me that is not true. Many encounters with peers and elders alike have showed me that many are not happy where they are; perhaps they had made a wrong choice some point in time and unwittingly suffered the consequences of their actions. Or perhaps they simply chose not to reach for what they wanted, and as a result paid for it with an unsatisfactory existence.

Jonny Jr mentioned the fact that humans are intrinsically beings who need freedom of choice (amongst others in the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs); and it is often the limitations that are already in place that constrain our spectrum of choices, frustrating those whose lot in life determines they be the unfortunate few with restricted choice.

Another friend commented, on a totally separate occasion, that given limited resources, particularly resources called time and money; we should use them to attain things with the most lasting utility. Material possessions have the ability to make us incredibly happy and proud; for just one moment, before shoving us into the spiral of unending covetousness. I understood this the moment I started working and earning my own keep; suddenly every bag looks like it needs to be adopted by you; each watch seems to tick and coax you hypnotically to pick it up, and once you do so, you find something else that calls out to you. There’s an unending stream of utility in buying material goods; with the fine print that you also need an unending stream of finances. It seems that given the limited time and health that we have, a generally agreed purchase which would provide energizer-battery-style long-lasting utility is, and always will be, experience.

If at any point in life, you are the sum of all your past experiences, then shouldn’t we make a conscious effort to increase the experiences that we have all the time? The lasting impact every scenario life places us with usually makes up a piece of the puzzle we are trying to fix. But at the same time, we do not buy our paths in life off the shelves as we would a jigsaw puzzle in Toys ‘R Us. Our puzzle in life is akin to a painting yet unfinished; and each decision we make results in the coloring of that little piece of the ultimate picture that is unraveled to us in tantalizing candy bits and pieces. And the more we choose to value experience over the mere attaining of a goal while dreading the journey, the more texture, vibrancy and hues our paintings will exude.

And so, let me finish my sales pitch. Buy experience; but never, never at a discount.

House Shopping

Buying a house, or even just choosing one that might be remotely suitable for sale, may be more than just a headache! its like a pregnancy without the knowledge of what sort of baby you’re going to get, or even if it s going to be a boy or a girl.

But it sure is fun to go look. I guess my dad’s entusiasm and hype for houses is kinda rubbing off on me. Although as youyi says, REITS are still always a better option for those who have neither the cash nor time.