A life is the sum of its felt experiences.

Our circumstances change and different things happen to us, yet our inner feelings often repeat themselves. Once you notice what you become obsessed with, what satisfies you, what leaves you empty, and what genuinely lights you up, many of those feelings can actually be recreated.

Experiences can be deep or shallow, bitter or sweet.

Let’s begin with what money can buy.

Money can buy time. Quiet. Less noise. “Stay away from me.” “Please don’t bother me.” “Keep me company for a while.” Someone saying, “You look beautiful today.” Dopamine. Adrenaline. The feeling that “I’m the best.” The reassurance that “I’m doing all right, aren’t I?” The illusion that “I’m growing.” Freedom. An entrance to adventure.

If you understand what you are truly buying, then the money was not wasted.

1. Experience the very best

Within your means, go straight for the best.

A K-pop dance class can cost only a few dozen yuan, yet the teacher may be a world-class dancer with millions of followers. Six introductory Minnan lessons in Xiamen cost 200 yuan. An art and design experience course at Central Saint Martins costs £680.

A small amount of money can buy access to exceptional teachers. The value density is extraordinary. And once you have experienced the highest level, you may actually spend less: ordinary versions of the same thing will no longer interest you.

2. Bodily pleasure

Body scrubs, foot massages, scalp treatments, and full-body massages are all forms of surface-level relaxation.

One trick: extend the session. It takes more than 180 minutes to enter a truly relaxed state, and the value is better too. But this kind of pleasure has a low ceiling. Treat it as a side dish, not the main course.

3. Eating

Michelin dining is essentially a complete aesthetic experience. It is a form of paid education, and a remarkably cost-effective way to appreciate art. Taste, space, service, pacing, tableware, narrative, and pairing all arrive as one composition.

With an acid-and-salt scoring system, the first question is whether the flavours suit you. More hot dishes are always a plus. Desserts rarely disappoint. But once the meal passes two hours, the quality of the experience falls off a cliff. No matter how good the food or the room is, neither can save it. Dishes that ask you to do a little work yourself can be a bonus, provided the difficulty is reasonable.

For an ordinary person, Michelin may matter less as proof that “I’ve eaten something expensive” than as a precise ritual that teaches you to take every bite seriously, notice each flavour, wake up your senses, and care for yourself attentively. Once learned, that way of eating can be carried into every meal: slow down and taste everything.

4. Korean aesthetic medicine

Book consultations at several expensive major clinics and let specialists identify the problems that genuinely need solving.

But for basic procedures that do not demand exceptional technique—radiofrequency microneedling, skin boosters, wrinkle-relaxing or face-slimming Botox—an efficient clinic with a clean, pleasant environment is enough. The price is lower and the result can be the same. Spend money on judgment; you do not always have to spend it on execution.

5. Adrenaline

Roller coasters, drop towers, cable cars, suspension bridges, and arcades. Pure physical stimulation asks for no thought. Just enjoy it.

Money can buy the entrance, but the deepest experiences often do not depend on money.

6. Total concentration

Complete concentration can create peak flow in almost anything: assembling a puzzle, writing, making a product, dancing, or training. What matters is not the activity. What matters is whether you can fall entirely into it.

Find the thing that holds your full attention, then give it time. With enough time, depth does not increase linearly; at some point it suddenly plunges.

There seems to be a common pattern: dangerous things make concentration easier. Riding a motorbike or doing woodwork demands attention because inattention can hurt you. The body instinctively locks your focus into place.

7. No strain, no thrill

Lifting weights feels far better than a massage. Gradually adding weight gives you a sense of conquest that no massage can provide.

Deep experience comes from solving, creating, and overcoming—not from being served. Comfort is a consumable. Challenge is a charger.

8. Pain magnifies joy

The sudden acceleration from hell to heaven is steep and beautiful. Extreme pain makes extreme happiness perceptible.

Recovering from a grave illness. Making a comeback. Regaining what was lost. Turning defeat into victory. Escaping death.

By moving between opposite extremes, you find your own balance and train the tensile strength of your spirit. Life then becomes smoother.

9. Fear marks the doorway to a new experience

When fear blocks you from doing something, do not treat it as an exam. Treat it simply as a new experience. There are no requirements and no standard to meet. Just experience it. Go and do it.

Let the new experience overwrite the old fear. Try a few times and the fear begins to break. A thick skin can be trained. That is the mental method.

10. Love is a game of imagination

Once you understand this, you can control when you fall in and out of obsession. You are the maker of the miracle: enter the story deeply and leave it quickly. The most interesting part of the game is always the hormonal rush of ambiguity and tension.

Finally, a few thoughts on how to live with experience itself.

11. Stacking creates surprise

Large scale, abundance, and high quality stacked together create surprise. Send twenty large boxes of the finest fruit. Do several things from your joy list on the same day, and your happiness grows exponentially until it feels explosive. Quantity becomes quality. Experience works the same way.

12. Give memory an anchor

Use music and perfume to give each period of memory its own anchor. You gain the freedom to summon a vivid feeling whenever you choose. That is both beautiful and precious. Anything connected to it is money well spent.

13. With experience, it is hard to go from luxury back to austerity

But luxury and austerity refer to intensity, not material price. Most beautiful feelings do not require material extravagance. They require the resonance of being on the same frequency as your own soul. The distance between beauty and pain creates an elegant tension.

14. To travel attentively every day is to learn who you are

The most interesting part of travel is not how many places you have visited. It is that you gradually learn what kind of life you actually like.

My method has always been simple: first list the things I want to experience, then set a few principles. There must be a peak experience. The pace should not be too fast. Keep it simple, comfortable, and not too exhausting.

In the end, the way we like to travel is often the way we truly want to live.

Some people must shop when they travel. Some must see exhibitions. Some must eat. Some must stay in excellent hotels. Some must take classes. Some must seek out the strange. Some must take photographs. Some must go a little wild.

Hotels are about spatial aesthetics. Eating is about a complete aesthetic experience. Massage is relaxation. Study trips are growth. Shopping is searching. Exhibitions are for finding inspiration. Seeking out the strange opens a new window in the mind.

Once you slowly recognize your own pattern, many things become clear. You know what deserves deeper attention and what can be eliminated. Then you can set yourself challenges and goals, make photo albums, keep journals, build products, and write essays.

The experience will not have been wasted. It will become part of you.

Life is short. Experience is feeling, memory, and those moments when you can say, “I was truly alive.”

The outer road is noisy and lively. The inner road is simple and quiet.

Experience the abundance that belongs to you alone. Take good care of your own heart.