"In the end, however, your answer is the only one that will count."

"And the next time you are about to ask someone else, 'Is it worth it?' don’t."

ADDED: I couldn't understand how the author could say that a bike he bought last year had lasted "far more than twice as long" as "some comparable models." How short a life span do those other bikes have — like 3 months?

It's very easy to imagine that you're doing — as he puts it — "a little mental math" as you look at something expensive and decide it will last a long time and provide more enjoyment. You can spend a lot of money after you liberate yourself to think in those terms.

OH: The mystery of the long-lasting-1-year-old bike is solved if — and only if — you click through to his earlier article, which begins "Eleven years ago, I needed a new bike...." The article I read just says "Last year, I wrote about a $5,000 road bike that I bought." There's something about those 2 verbs in sequence — I wrote... I bought — that makes it look like the same time period. The reader shouldn't have to generate questions and research them to get through the reasoning of the essay at hand.

The older article contains the assertion "It replaces five other bikes." I still wonder what's wrong with those other bikes that they only last 2 years, but it seems he's comparing his bike to the "plastic bikes (carbon fiber)" used by the "guys I ride with." So the other guys have unusually transitory bikes, which is what makes them comparable, presumably. Not those aluminum bikes ordinary people buy. Actually, it's not that the other guys' "plastic" bikes are wearing out. It's just that they're the kind of guys who spring for a new model of bike every 2 years.

So it's the psychology of the mind that doesn't buy the $5,000 bike that causes the "comparable" bike not last: "[W]hen you buy cheap stuff, you get bored with it. I do not get bored with this bike, and that is why it is saving me money."

Do you get bored with cheap stuff? The newer article refutes that assertion, since it goes on to talk about a $9 ice cream scoop that works really well and that gives pleasure in part because of it was so cheap: "what makes it memorable to me is that it feels like a steal."