Purchase of Satisfaction

 

I have a white Taiji classmate who is above 70 years old. She is born in Australia and married to a Malaysian Chinese turned Singaporean. As their children are in Australia and UK they have decided recently to sell their house in Singapore and rent an apartment while reconsidering where they should domicile in their elderly years.

Many interested buyers viewed and offered . Though the offer prices were right all of them wanted to flatten the property and rebuild it into a 4 storey house with bigger built in area. My classmate feels that the house can still be lived in and tearing it down is a terrible waste of material and resources. Hence she and her husband were hesitant and despaired over the delay in getting a "good buyer". Just when they were about to accept the fact that in Singapore people go for maximum utility of space, a Singaporean couple who have recently returned from overseas found her place lovely and intended to just restore and renovate it, keeping the outdoor space intact. So they readily agreed to the offer and felt the couple was a last minute god-send. 

Similarly there is another friend who years ago decided to sell her house to her neighbour's daughter even though their offer fell short of the highest bid price by 10%. She told me she took comfort in knowing that her former neighbour is living close to her daughter.

Truly these are people who nudge me into reviewing my habitual attitude towards maximizing monetary returns which of course was exacerbated by my role in my previous career. To maximize return on money is really to maximize our purchasing power. We then have to consider what to purchase to gain maximum satisfaction. Does the satisfaction just lie in the joy of seeing the multiplication of zeros in the bank accounts and the asset value? 

Bill Perkins, the author of the  book "Die with Zero" once said "The optimal utility of money" is using money to gain the maximum great experiences in one's living years. I think for my 2 friends great experience includes feeling happy when thinking about a warm family gathering inside one's former home or visualizing a couple sharing a quiet evening under the tree which one planted in a former home garden.