When We 'Just Keep Buying,' What Are We Really Buying?

I’ve been reading “Just Keep Buying” recently, and many viewpoints in the book really resonated with me and sparked a lot of thinking. As the book says, you can earn more money, but nothing can buy you more time. Young people always overestimate their future life satisfaction. As time passes, excessive optimism fades, and people don’t become depressed—they’re becoming, well, realistic.

I already feel like I’m losing some imagination. I start doing B when I meant to do A, while my mind is thinking about C that I forgot to do, and soon I’ll have to do D—opportunities to focus for a stretch are becoming fewer and fewer. But thankfully, the community meetups are really exciting! I rush over whenever there’s one, haha.

The Psychological Battle Between Saving and Spending

The book mentions a viewpoint: “Saving more is only more beneficial when you save in a way that’s stress-free. Otherwise, saving itself does more harm than good.”

This really resonated with me. If something needs to be done long-term, I’ll try to find a comfortable way to do it—automatically saving money is kind of a built-in trait for me, haha. But the ultimate purpose of saving is spending, and every time I spend money on something I think is really worth it, I get this feeling like my brain freezes up. I keep blaming myself, and ultimately it takes the power of time to let that feeling gradually fade.

Like the online course from a math teacher I really liked (Abu) that I bought on Bilibili during high school, the annual membership for Xinfan (hehe, I’ve been an annual member since I joined), AI monthly subscriptions, my sister’s running shoes, and so on—they all felt like this. But later, the quality math teaching, learning with senior friends from the community, my sister sharing her running plans with me… all made me feel this money was well spent, and I couldn’t help but marvel at how money really can solve many problems in life.

Ultimately, money should be used to create the life you want. The difficulty isn’t in spending money, but in figuring out what you really want from life. Once you figure that out, spending becomes easier and more enjoyable. I’m the type who immediately starts questioning whether money spent was necessary, but it’s actually hard to evaluate what’s truly useful for yourself. I think values are one measuring standard. But what’s difficult is that the values we want to promote might not be the same as the values we were raised with. This reminds me of what “Influence” mentions—through “writing, reading aloud, and reciting,” you gradually come to accept certain viewpoints.

Habits, Growth, and Life’s Resilience

There’s a profound story in the book: “That’s when I realized everything would be okay. No matter what, even if the world around me was falling apart, the flower seller was still there selling his flowers.”

This is similar to what it says later about comparing wealth. “Being rich is a relative concept. It was, and always will be.” Going from a village elementary school to a village middle school, then testing into the city’s key middle school, then running off to the big city, and opening my eyes to the world in online communities—I feel my concept of wealth is indeed quite fuzzy now.

Another thing that amazed me was the power of habits. The book mentions that the human body adjusts its total energy expenditure based on physical activity. Now I run for at least 30 minutes every day, no matter what state I’m in. This month, with high-pressure brainwork studying, taking my mom, sister, and aunt on a whirlwind tour of Guangzhou, I kept feeling off, but the running inertia I’d built up kept me going. I haven’t been to see a doctor this semester, haha, and all that complicated knowledge about reimbursement procedures became unnecessary (some friends even saved my WeChat messages about reimbursement and send them out whenever anyone asks 🤣).

Making life comfortable enough to sleep well is, I think, an important standard for measuring what you’re doing. But you also need to withstand some storms. What’s important might be building good protective mechanisms—having a “plant-like” resilience when you’re stuck, since so many important moments in life are actually others deciding your fate. Getting your own priorities sorted out is an important point, I think! For example, I run every day, and I feel less like it’s my responsibility to control whether I offend others or make them uncomfortable—more of a let it go attitude—while focusing on those who are on the same wavelength.

Investing in Yourself, Connecting to the Future

The book says: “The only downside to selling time is that it can’t scale. One hour of work will forever equal one hour of income.” How to “convert human capital into financial capital”—at first I didn’t quite understand, so I guess I need to find time to read a money book soon.

The most sustainable way to get rich is to increase income and invest in income-generating assets. This doesn’t mean you can completely ignore spending—everyone should regularly review their spending to make sure there’s no waste. But there’s no need to control yourself to buy less coffee. If you want to save more money, you can cut back where you can, but the point is to focus on increasing your income. Just make sure there’s no waste and put money where you want to put it, I think! But you also need to set aside some money for risk. I’m also thinking about how to make money—thinking about it, thinking about it!

Just like desert plant seeds “hedge their bets,” being sufficiently diversified is very important—like the crafty rabbit with three burrows, we can’t put all our eggs in one basket. We need to be able to withstand risk and change, rather than wanting to go all-in on everything.

Reflections on Different Stages of Life

In 1972, my grandparents bought their house in California for $28,000. Today, that property is worth about $600,000… Besides the economic returns, my grandparents also raised 3 children there… I love that home.

Stories have power. Although we can’t just see life as individual dots, don’t we need all these dots to connect them into a line? Actively starting new life stories, opening new plot lines—all require paying a certain price. Money and emotions are deeply intertwined. Buying a house, or in rural areas like ours, building a house—this kind of decision feels like it will be one of the biggest financial decisions ordinary people make in their lifetime. It’s an invisible contract—you choose a place and then build community relationships there.

Just chatting with Brother Ben over coffee, we talked about: when you’re young, you have time and energy, but no money; in middle age, you have money and energy, but no time; in old age, you have time and money, but no energy. There are always contradictions, but I think time and energy can be exchanged for money—you just have to choose the right amount and also live your life well.

Finally, as the book says, “Buy stocks to eat well, but buy bonds to sleep well.” Having seen so many viewpoints, without being taught a practical lesson, I probably still won’t form the neural pathways! Take it slow.