May 10, 2026 • 3 min
Maybe the problem is not wanting too much, but never defining what is actually enough.
Another workday comes to an end and I find myself, once again, in the airport parking lot.
I get into the car still feeling slightly disconnected from reality, loosening my tie while slowly driving toward the exit. That’s when I notice one of my colleagues stepping out of a brand-new Tesla.
For a few seconds I just look at it. Not really out of envy or judgment, but because it makes me wonder about something much simpler:
if my salary suddenly doubled tomorrow, would that actually be the thing I need?
For a long time I assumed that earning more naturally meant spending more too. A constant upgrade. A life expanding together with income.
Bigger cars, bigger apartments, more comfort, more habits that quietly become normal to maintain.
And over time I started realizing that most people never consciously decide what they actually want. They simply inherit an idea of success that was already waiting for them somewhere around them.
The strange part is that it often doesn’t even happen because of vanity. Most of the time it’s automatic. You slowly adapt to a more expensive version of normal without even noticing it.
I’ve always loved well-made objects. I like quality, functionality, things that are built properly and that improve something real in everyday life.
During the Covid years, like half of Italy, I started baking bread at home. And like with almost every hobby I genuinely care about, sooner or later I ended up buying the best equipment I could reasonably afford.
An expensive KitchenAid. Probably even excessive.
But there was a difference.
That object wasn’t there to communicate something about me to other people. It existed because I actually use it constantly. I know it well, I enjoy working with it, and over time it became part of something real rather than just another object sitting in the background of my life.
Somewhere along the way I started noticing the difference between owning something and simply consuming something.
Maybe the point is not owning less.
Maybe the point is removing the need to fill your life with things that only exist to support an image you never consciously chose in the first place.
Because enough is not the moment you stop desiring things.
It’s the moment you stop needing those things to justify your life.