A Comment from My Husband

More and more people are joining my Hatena Bookmark readership every day. Thank you so much for following along with this rather niche blog. Anyway, yesterday my husband said:

“Wait, aren’t your readers confused? You keep saying you’re going to buy a Panamera, but you already drive one. Are you buying another one even though you have one? Or are you just writing about all these cars after test-driving them, and you don’t actually own one?”

Fair point… So I decided it was time to set the record straight.

Let’s Clear Up the Situation

・I currently drive a Panamera.
・My husband bought this Panamera as our family car a year and a half ago.
・Even though I already drive a Panamera, I’m thinking about buying one for myself.

We already have a Panamera—and I’m thinking of buying another one.

Umm… let me think…

…Am I crazy? ( ﾟ∀ﾟ)･∵. ?

I can see why it might look that way.

But one thing is crystal clear to me: there’s a world of difference between driving a Panamera my husband bought and buying one with my own money. I feel like you can’t truly appreciate something until you’ve experienced it using money you earned yourself.

Why Spending Your Own Money Matters

I felt the same way when I went abroad for the first time at 19, during my first year of university. In my second year, I worked part-time and saved up to go on a homestay in the United States with my own money. I could have asked my parents to pay, but I knew my strict family would probably object, saying it was dangerous or something. So I pleaded, “Please let me go—I’ll pay for the whole trip with money I earn from my own part-time job!” They eventually agreed.

Many of the people around me had their parents paying for their trips. But because I was spending my own hard-earned money, I think I was more determined than most to “learn as much as I can and soak it all in!” And in the end, it felt like a deeply rewarding experience. (Though I still can’t speak English at all… What a waste.)

There are plenty of other examples, too: how delicious that first meal at ◯◯ was when I went out with my first paycheck. Experiences you pay for yourself—whatever they are—often stay with you.

A World Only You Can See When You Pay for It

Buying something with your own money is a success in itself. Its value isn’t just in what you end up with. The effort it took to get there, the setbacks, and all the hard work along the way—they’re part of the experience, too. That’s why the joy of finally getting what you worked for can be multiplied many times over.

There’s a world you can only see when you’ve paid for something yourself.

Achieving that goal gives you confidence in yourself and the motivation to reach even higher. Your world expands, and life gets more and more interesting… or at least, that’s what I think.

That’s why, when it comes to the Panamera, it’s not so much that I “want to drive one” as that I want to “earn enough to comfortably afford one and buy it with my own money.”

Maybe I’m stubborn—or just a little eccentric. That’s how I’ve been feeling lately.