A small, please

The personal and global pressure to want more.

My favourite drink is a dry cappuccino. I'm not quite sure what the "dry" part means yet but the specificity invokes a sense of illustriousness. Why is it, then, that my most ordered drink is a latte? Let's dive into this riveting phenomenon, also expressed as "quality over quantity".

Working from home is synonymous for many with working from a coffee shop. A daily cappuccino would cost around $1,500 a year. While affording this is a privilege on its own, bumping up to a flavoured latte would cost more than double the cappuccino at around $3,200. This of course varies per person but if you could enjoy a smaller, still delectable coffee, the cost-savings becomes quite the obvious choice.

Value is difficult to quantise and varies between person. Upsizing a medium soda to a large may yield a cheaper-per-ounce beverage at the cost of glucose inundating your sodium-dependent hexose transporters.

For those who are not caffeine-dependent, we see these persuasive price tiers throughout the profit-hungry, people-destroying system of capitalism. Let's indulge. Or not?

Financial manipulation

What if we settled on the entry-level devices. The non-pro marketed devices. The more-than-a-year-old devices. My grandmother is at the top of her friend group's Words with Friends leaderboard, playing on an iPad from 2018. A yearly (base model) upgrade would net marginal gains while costing around $1,500 between then and now. Start increasing the specs and that $1,500 turns into $3,000. Just like our coffee!

I am no saint. Visiting Apple's flashy website showing off a new lemon colour for their iPhone 14 is damn tempting. My addictive personality goes from wanting the latest and greatest to getting rid of a smartphone altogether. The new features do not impress. A new colour, however. A new box to tear into. These dopamine inducing experiences create a toxic desire that at times seems impossible to resist.

Things are temporary

Every year is new. Every year we are sold an idea of an innovation that will change your life, for a cost. Buy this trendy couch with a lifetime warranty for only 400% above market average. This is value though isn't it? Buy it for life! The problem is, "life" is only until something better is released.

Positively, this isn't a one or the other situation. There are fairly priced, used items out there. Quality desks, chairs, appliances, and so much more. Extend the life of existing products. Show them love, as many of these items were made with such.

Good gravy

As a closing remark, remember this tale. There was a couple who discovered these cubes of gravy. The simplicity of it all. One day, this gravy was on sale for nearly half off. We they bought the entire shelf. Now left with 30 cubes or so of gravy, the couple is filled with joy for the future.

3 years later, the gravy finally expired, with 24 cubes remaining of the initial 30. The adoration of gravy not only faded naturally with time but was prematurely diminished due to the fixation on wanting to use the newly bought gravy. Wasted food. Wasted money. A passion no longer. Good gravy, no longer.