Return on Joy: Measure the Return, Not the Price
The short answer
Return on Joy is a way to judge any investment of money, time, or emotion. Ignore the sticker price and ask about the ratio: are you getting far more joy out than you put in? A cheap thing used constantly can beat an expensive thing used rarely, and relationships pay the highest return of all.
Someone close to me wanted a GTR for years. He saved for it, borrowed for it, and finally bought it. The days he got to drive it were awesome. But this is Colorado. You can't drive a car like that very often, so he got very few days against a very high cost.
A friend of mine, Scott, has a pair of $20 flip-flops. Some of the most incredible experiences of his life happened in them. When he looks at those flip-flops, he remembers all of it.
Same question, opposite answers. That question is what I call Return on Joy.
What is Return on Joy?
It's a lens for any investment: money, time, or emotion. The sticker price tells you almost nothing. What matters is the ratio. Are you getting exponentially more joy out than you put in?
Most people optimize cost. They hunt for the deal, negotiate the price, and feel good about what they saved. Then they own something that sits in the garage. Return on Joy flips the math. A high price can be a great investment if the return is enormous, and a bargain can be a terrible one if it gives you nothing back.
This is the practical side of Experiences over Things. I'd rather do than have. When I look back at the moments that mattered, almost none of them are about what I owned, and most of them are about what I did and who I did it with. The ratio explains why: an experience keeps paying you every time you remember it, and a thing usually pays you once.
How do you use it on a real decision?
Before a purchase, ask three questions.
How often will I actually use this? Be honest about the calendar you really live, which may be different from the one you imagine.
Who will I share it with? Joy shared multiplies. A boat that brings your family out on the water every weekend has a very different return from a boat that sits at the dock.
What will I remember? Five years from now, will this be part of a story you tell, or will you have forgotten you bought it?
Run those three and the right answer usually shows up on its own. Sometimes it's the expensive thing. Sometimes it's the $20 thing. The price is the least interesting number in the decision.
Does it apply past money?
It applies to relationships most of all.
I pour a lot into my friendships, and I get so much out of them. I don't go in looking to get something back. I just believe in positively impacting others, and it comes back 10, 20, 100-fold. That's the highest Return on Joy there is: invest without trying to extract, and the return compounds.
It applies to time, too. An hour of a board meeting you didn't need to attend and an hour on a trail with your son cost exactly the same. The returns aren't close. Show me your friends, and I'll show you your future is the same principle pointed at the people you spend your hours with.
Your money and your time should work the way your best friendships do. Put them where the return is.
Look at the last three things you spent real money on. Which one gave you the best Return on Joy?
~b