There is a classic experiment in which lottery winners, measured some months after the win, reported roughly the same happiness levels as before. The researchers called it hedonic adaptation — the idea that we return to baseline faster than we expect. I find it a useful piece of kit for examining what we thought we were buying.
So: the car, the watch, the corner office, the postcode, the professional title, the kitchen renovation, the handbag. Whatever it was you worked for, saved for, or quietly burned to have. Did it deliver? And for how long — days, months, a season?
I am particularly interested in the gap between the moment you got it and the moment it became furniture. What happened in that space?
No judgement here. Wanting things is ordinary and human. I am just curious whether, in retrospect, you were buying the thing or the idea of the thing.