The relativity of values causes us to use money irrationally. I go to the supermarket to buy a $15 pen, and the clerk smiles and says, “You can buy this pen for $7 if you walk 5 minutes from here.” Then, most people walk five minutes and buy a $15 pen for $7. But if you want to buy a $1,000 jacket and the clerk smiles and says, “You can get a $992 jacket in five minutes from here,” most people simply buy the $1,000 jacket. Reasonably, walking for 5 minutes equals the effort, and the profit of $8 is the same. However, people might go to a store that sells pens cheaper, but not for the jacket, because the discount rate is too low. In other words, the relativity of comparing values makes us act irrationally. The pen’s discount rate is 55%, and the jacket’s is only 0.8%. Yet, the total amount is the same for all $8, and the effort to gain that profit is identical. Attitudes and misconceptions about consumption influence how we build wealth. - Joseph’s “just my thoughts”
If you can’t throw away what you have, you don’t own it properly. If you cannot leave the place you are staying, you are not entirely settled. Possession and non-possession share the same root, and wandering and settlement share the same root. There is no eternal state; we only enjoy a temporary state. It is often misunderstood that a state of possession for a moment is possession, and that a momentary absence is mistaken for wandering. The world changes, and you change too. Obsession and stubbornness will only hinder your change. If you know how to give up and leave at any time, the value of what you currently have and the state you are in will change significantly. Stability comes from sharing instability. - Joseph’s “just my thoughts”