Essay Series | Part 3 of 6

The Structure of Happiness and Income

Which Is Richer: a Standard Three-Bedroom Home or a Luxury Mansion?
— The Trap of Confusing Ownership with Use —

In the previous installment, I compared a practical car costing around five million yen with a supercar costing one hundred million yen.

Although the price was roughly twenty times higher, the basic function of the car—moving us safely and comfortably—did not become twenty times greater.
Instead, as the price rose, other forms of value increased: rarity, beauty, narrative, and the experience of ownership.

Something else rather curious happened as well.

The car had been purchased to provide freedom, yet it began to dictate the owner's days off: “I own it, so I ought to drive it.”
In the previous essay, I called this “the constraints created by ownership.”

Now let us consider the same structure in relation to housing.

In general, a higher income makes it possible to live in a larger and more luxurious home.
A one-bedroom home gives way to two bedrooms, two to three, and three to five.
Beyond that comes a detached house with a large garden, and beyond that, a luxury mansion complete with a swimming pool and private gym.

If we look only at the numbers, greater size appears to mean greater prosperity.

But is that really so?

Consider a standard three-bedroom home.

There is a living room and dining area.
There is a main bedroom.
There is also enough space to give family members rooms of their own.
There is a bathroom.
There is a toilet.
There is a kitchen.
There is storage.

Family size and lifestyle naturally affect how much space is needed, so this is not to say that a three-bedroom home is ideal for everyone.

Still, if the basic purpose of a home is to provide a safe and comfortable setting for daily life, then a home of this size already fulfills a remarkably broad range of functions.

If the price of the home then rises tenfold, does life become ten times more comfortable?

There are more rooms. The living room grows larger. There is a garden.
There can be a guest room, a study, and a room for hobbies.

That can certainly be enjoyable.

For a large family, for someone who welcomes many guests, or for someone who needs space for artwork or a collection, a large home may be genuinely necessary.

This is not an argument that luxury mansions are meaningless.

The issue is that here, too, the basic function eventually reaches saturation.

For someone struggling with only one room, adding a second can make an enormous difference.

For a family sharing a single bathroom, adding another washroom is genuinely convenient.

But when five unused rooms become six, does happiness rise by the same amount?
That is far less certain.

A larger home does not maintain itself.

More floor space means more to clean.
More windows mean more window washing.
A larger garden requires more care.
More equipment means more equipment that can fail.
There is more space to heat and cool.
Even the distances walked inside the home become longer.

The house was made larger for convenience,
yet its size creates new work.

Of course, money makes it possible to hire other people.

Cleaners can be hired. So can gardeners, maintenance staff, and cooks.
The owner no longer has to perform the work personally.

But another task then appears: managing the people who manage the house.

Nor will everyone feel comfortable with people entering the home almost every day. The owner may not know them well, and in some cases their presence may itself become a source of stress.

A home is also meant to be a place where we can step away from the outside world and relax without attending to anyone else.

If maintaining luxury requires bringing more people into the home and thereby reduces the time one can spend alone there, the result is rather paradoxical.

A swimming pool makes the distinction even clearer.

A grand mansion has a pool. It looks like the very image of wealth. But consider the matter more closely.

Do people truly want to own a swimming pool?
Or do they simply want to enjoy swimming?

If swimming is the goal, a well-equipped sports club may be enough.

The water quality is managed. The pool is cleaned. There are showers and lockers.
Some facilities even provide trainers and instructors.
There is no need to maintain a private pool at home.

The same applies to a gym.

It is possible to install the latest training machines at home.
Yet a specialist facility offers access to a wider range of equipment only when it is needed.
If something breaks, the user does not have to repair it.
Nor does the user have to plan the replacement of old machines.

An important distinction now becomes visible.

Owning something and using it are not the same.

If what a person wants is an experience, that person does not necessarily need to own the equipment that produces it.

We may not want a pool; we may simply want to swim.
We may not want a gym; we may simply want to exercise.
We may not want a cinema; we may simply want to enjoy a film.

Perhaps we do not even want a house as such.

What we truly want may be a place where we can live comfortably.

Yet when income rises and almost anything becomes affordable, our thinking can shift from “I can use it” to “I can own it.”

At that point, the constraints created by ownership return.

Imagine buying a holiday home.

At first it is delightful. The scenery is beautiful. The surroundings are quiet. You can visit whenever you like.

After several years, however, another thought may appear: we bought the place, so it would be a waste not to visit from time to time.
We have not been there recently, so perhaps we should check on it.
What about the garden? The house needs airing. The equipment should be inspected. Such thoughts begin to accumulate.

That weekend, you may actually have wanted to relax close to home.
Or perhaps you wanted to travel somewhere entirely different.

But the fact that you own a holiday home begins to decide where your holidays will be spent.

This is exactly what happened with the supercar.

You bought it because you wanted it. You bought it to become freer.
But the moment you own it, it has to be maintained.
Not using it feels wasteful, and leaving it unattended becomes a concern. Small obligations begin to form.

A luxury mansion may work in the same way. There is a vast living room, a magnificent dining room, and a garden.

With such a house, perhaps we ought to invite friends from time to time.
We should prepare food. We should ready the rooms.

Before long, we may find ourselves making plans to put the house to use on a day when what we really wanted was a quiet rest.

Of course, if entertaining guests is a great pleasure, that is wonderful.
If every visit to the holiday home is a joy, that too is happiness.
If someone swims every morning, a private pool may be entirely worthwhile.

Ultimately, the issue is neither large versus small nor expensive versus inexpensive.

The issue is whether what we own matches what we genuinely want to use.

We may own something because we need it, because we love it, or because we want to use it. All of this is natural.

But once we begin using something because we own it, maintaining it because we own it, and arranging our schedule around it because we own it, the relationship between owner and possession gradually reverses.

The possessions accumulated in pursuit of prosperity begin to demand our time and behavior.

Does a person own the house?
Or does the house own part of the person's life?

The answer gradually becomes difficult to see.

This is why the richness of a home cannot be measured by floor area or price alone.

There is enough space and the necessary equipment. We are not consumed by cleaning or management, and we need not accommodate anyone else's presence.
We are free to do what we want, when we want.

Perhaps happiness in housing is not about how much we possess, but about how comfortably we can live.

The same structure appeared with cars.
It appears again with homes.

It seems that even if prices keep rising, human comfort does not rise at the same rate.

What, then, about food—the third element of food, clothing, and shelter?

With enough income, we could eat the finest food every day.
A lavish breakfast. Lunch at an expensive restaurant. A full-course dinner every night.
We could even employ a private chef.

Would that allow the happiness of eating to increase without limit?

Here, however, an even more powerful constraint appears than with cars or homes.

The human body.

In the next installment, I would like to ask: “Would a full-course meal every day make us happy?”