The cereal dilemma

I have a peculiar financial talent: I can lose thousands of dollars in the stock market in a single day without blinking. Yet, the next morning, I will stand in the supermarket aisle and refuse to buy my favorite cereal because it isn’t on sale for a $1 discount.

And I’m not alone in this kind of paradox. Take “Royce’ Chocolate,” a famous Hokkaido delicacy. It is incredibly delicious but carries a premium price. As a result, we locals often buy it as a gift for others but almost never for ourselves. It’s a strange irony: even though it’s a local treasure, Hokkaido residents probably get to eat it the least.

I once bought a designer suit for over $2,000, but I was so terrified of spilling coffee on it that I never wore it. I am a man who wears UNIQLO from head to toe at home, yet I fluctuate between reckless gambling and extreme frugality. Why? Because spending money is rarely a rational act; it is an emotional rollercoaster.

The Harvard intervention

To find an answer, I turned to a famous paper by Harvard psychologists. One of the co-authors, Daniel Gilbert, begins with a provocative sentence: “Money can’t buy happiness. This sentiment is lovely, popular, and almost certainly wrong.” He proposes eight principles for “happier” spending. As a marketing professional, I initially planned to use these to convince you to buy our furniture. However, the very first principle is: “Buy experiences instead of things.” At first glance, this felt like a marketing disaster. But give me a chance to explain why these professors might unknowingly be our best salespeople.

The curse of adaptation

Another key principle says: “Buy many small pleasures instead of a few big ones.” This is because humans have a “curse” called adaptation.

If you’ve read my other articles (if not, please do!), you know I’m a huge car enthusiast. Every time I get a new car, I make a solemn, mysterious vow to God: “I will keep this one spotless! I will wash it every week!” But the truth? I’ve never washed a car myself in my life. I wait until the car is so filthy that I’m afraid to touch the door handle, then I finally shove it into an automatic car wash at a gas station. I am, quite literally, a Master of Adaptation.

We adapt to “big” purchases quickly. That expensive new car or iPhone feels like a miracle for three days; within weeks, it’s just an object you take for granted. The happiness-boost evaporates. Gilbert suggests we should instead invest in the things that provide a continuous stream of small, daily joys.

The NAGARE chair: An investment in 36,500 moments

Here is where I will “forcibly” conclude. If happiness comes from “small, frequent pleasures” and “experiences,” then a chair is not just a “thing.”

Think about it. You sit in your favorite chair every morning for coffee, every evening for a glass of wine, and every weekend for a good book. If you use a chair for 10 years, that is 3,650 days—or over 30,000 “experiences” of comfort.

Investing in a NAGARE chair isn’t about owning a piece of wood; it’s about buying a decade of better mornings. It is the opposite of my $2,000 suit—you don’t have to fear it; you live in it. By spending more on the things we use most often, we bypass the “curse of adaptation” and turn a “thing” into a lifelong “experience” of quality.

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Happiness isn’t found in a grand, one-time purchase, but in the quiet comfort of your daily routine. Why not trade a “big” regret for ten years of “small” morning pleasures? (And unlike a car, you don’t even have to wash it every week.)

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