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Memory dividends compound
Bill Perkins uses the term in his book Die with Zero. A first job in corporate finance at UPS in Atlanta paid about $56,000, with rent of $1,200 to $1,300 a month, and living on $2,000 a month was possible. With a burn rate that low, a fun night out with friends, a trip, or a spontaneous thing at 23 or 24 buys memories to look back on fondly for the next 50, 60, or 70 years. It is also the first time you and your friends are making money and are responsible for yourselves, out of the house.
Some of these things cost far less in your 20s and may not be possible later. A year backpacking Europe and Latin America and living in hostels in a bunk bed with 12 roommates sounds horrible at 29 and was a ton of fun at 24. That year had a finite, defined window and an end date, because a spot in a good business school was already secured, and most career progression and earnings were expected to come from age 27 on.
Why do experiences outlast things in memory?
In a 2003 paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Leaf Van Boven and Thomas Gilovich found that people who thought about an experiential purchase felt happier about it than people who thought about a material one. Experiences also become part of a person's identity and story, while objects fade into the background through adaptation. Experiences are shared with other people too, which gives them a social life that a possession lacks.
Why do old memories feel warmer over time?
Psychologists call it the fading affect bias. In a series of studies published in the early 2000s, Richard Walker, John Skowronski, and Charles Thompson found that the emotion tied to unpleasant memories fades faster than the emotion tied to pleasant ones. The effect appears across many autobiographical memories. The result is that a hostel bunk that was miserable in the moment can be remembered as a good time.
Why do people regret what they didn't do?
In a 1995 study, Thomas Gilovich and Victoria Medvec found that people felt more regret over actions in the short term, but over a lifetime they regretted inactions more. Actions that go wrong can be explained, repaired, or rationalized, while a road not taken stays open to endless imagining. Participants were most likely to cite missed chances in education, romance, and career.