Until a while ago, I considered socks a frivolous thing to spend your hard earnt money on. After all, why should I spend money on a few measly socks when I could use some of the same money to buy, say, a good book or a new game? I realised the error of my ways when I was finally left with only five socks, two of which were too small.

You have to ask yourself, why do we buy things in the first place? In fact, why do we do anything? In the end, the only reason we ever do anything is to try to improve our overall happiness. Maybe it doesn't always work, but in the end the overall motive for any action is happiness.

We pay the rent because we know it makes us happier to have a place to live than to have lots of money. We go to work because we know it makes us happier, in the end, to have money than to not bother with the job.

Okay, so why didn't I like buying socks?

A concentrated source of happiness

It's all to do with getting the most happiness out of the least effort. In our culture, money is pretty much the same thing as effort, and so we try to get the most happiness for the smallest price tag.

Which would you rather, a great book for ten pounds or a great book for five? A boring book for five or a great book for five? You always root for the thing that you percieve to have the best money to happy ratio.

My realisation of this fact happened to come as a searched in vain for a second clean sock at the bottom of every drawer and, with a sinking heart, realised that I would have to resort to the sorry looking, slightly greying thing in the corner, looking like it was ready for retirement. Because you see, i didn't realise how much happier it makes me to have socks that don't smell than to have socks that do.

I think until now i had managed to avoid finishing a post with a cliché, but: you don't know what you got until it's gone.