Buyer’s Remorse

Buyer’s remorse is a well-known phenomenon.

Many, if not all of us, have experienced it.

It has been described in detail and may well be a form of cognitive dissonance.

The greater the cost (or perceived value) of a given purchase, often the greater propensity for this to occur.

So the two greatest purchases of the average person’s life may be involved: automobile and real estate.

People who experience this phenomenon may identify with one or more of the categories below:

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After I bought this product:

I was in despair

I resented it

I felt disappointed in myself

I felt scared

I felt hollow

I felt angry

I felt uneasy

I felt I’d let myself down

I felt annoyed

I felt frustrated

I was in pain

I felt depressed

I felt furious with myself

I felt sick

I was in agony

I wondered if I really need this product

I wondered if I made the right choice at all

I wonder if I should have bought anything at all

I wonder if I might have been fooled

I wonder if there was something wrong with the deal I got

I wonder if they had lied to me

One might think it is all about money.

But it isn’t necessarily the case.

Sometime relationships figure in.

For instance, after marriage, some might wonder whether they got the best person they could.

They might experience the equivalent of buyer’s remorse.

The fact that close to 50% of 1st marriages end up in divorces attests to this thinking.

For marriages after the first, the divorce rates are even higher.

Even billionaires may have buyer’s remorse.

Another reason for arguing it’s not only about money.

For them, it’s often about politics.

Aesop, legendary Greek slave and fabulist, had something to say about this.

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Here’s a brief retelling of his fable of the dog and his bone:

A random dog with a bone in its mouth is crossing a bridge over a stream.

He happens to glance down and sees a reflection of himself in the stream with a larger bone.

Dogs are not known to be among animals which recognize a reflection of themselves in mirrors.

Or streams.

So the dog apparently does not recognize the image of itself in the surface of the stream.

Species that are acknowledged to recognize themselves include the great apes, dolphins, elephants, and magpies, wrasse fish, manta rays, orcas, pigs, corvids (like ravens and crows), certain nutcrackers, and horses.

But not dogs.

This dog happens to be greedy, and desirous of a bone larger than the one he is clamping in his mouth.

But in order to get the larger bone he sees in the water, he must unclamp his jaws around the bone he is holding.

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When he does, the bone falls into the stream and either sinks or is carried from view.

It matters not.

Now he has no bone at all.

The brief incident cited below is a true anecdote.

Writer Kurt Vonnegut was once at a party talking with Joseph Heller, author of the novel, ‘CATCH-22.’

I read the work in graduate school and thought it easily the most brilliant thing I encountered all year.

The party was being hosted by a nameless billionaire somewhere in NYC.

The city seems full of such people.

Kurt turned to Joe and asked, “How does it make you feel to know that, during the time of this party, our host likely made more than you’ll ever make, no matter how many copies of ‘CATCH-22’ are sold?”

Heller replied, “I have something he’ll never have.”

“Oh,” asked Vonnegut, “and what’s that?”

“The knowledge I have enough,” smiled Heller, as he took another sip of his cocktail.

One instance that sticks in memory concerns an expensive plumbing job near my kitchen about year ago.

I went with the company which gave me a first bid.

I failed to get other bids, which is atypical of me.

Why I did that I have difficulty explaining today, but I’ll never know what it might have cost me had I gotten other bids.

But then again, I mollify myself by reasoning it’s only money.

And I still work.

Of interest, someone once told me one of the hardest challenges she knew was being a realtor in a religious community known for being a so-called ‘blue zone.’

Both buyer and seller were convinced God wanted them to do well.

Since the Almighty was silent, we don’t how He really felt about the matter.

He may have just smiled, showing again He might have a sense of humor.

For why else would He have made humans so different?

Perhaps if males and females were more alike they’d get along better.

Or not.

Rex Harrison (Professor Henry Higgins of ‘MY FAIR LADY’) may have had a point when he lamented, in one of the songs, “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?”

Or vice versa.

Maybe the Almighty knows something He’s not telling us.

Sometimes buyer’s remorse is disproportionate to the amount at stake.

I happened to be playing tennis recently when one of the players, who had been to Hawaii recently, mentioned she and her husband rented a vehicle while there.

“We went through Costco,” she said. “That was cheapest.”

It so happens my daughter and I will be attending an out-of-state family reunion in a few months.

I determined the distance between the airport and camp where the reunion will transpire is such that it made sense to rent a car rather than take an Uber/Lyft from the airport to the camp.

I checked various sites but did not think of Costco, although I am a member of that organization.

I had rented a vehicle through a link from an online platform.

I will admit, before I knew what the rental cost would be for a vehicle from Costco, experiencing a twinge of buyer’s remorse.

After checking Costco’s prices, I felt better.

I had dodged a financial bullet.

But taking a step back would have reassured me.

The cost of car rental was not prohibitive.

I was not going to have to take out a HELOC in order to afford the rental.

In the big scheme of things, it was small.

But a small drop in the ocean of life.

But some of us have difficulty relinquishing the past.

It clings to us like the field burr that was the inspiration for Velcro.

I remember where I came from.

It was not till near the end of his career that my father made over $10K/year at the school at which he taught.

Our currency seemed like rubber.

No one made a dollar stretch more than he and my mother.

Even now, I marvel how they did it.

I do think Joseph Heller was onto something.

The Gospel is presented as a binary choice.

Either you accept it or you don’t.

There are no other gospels in the offing.

No bigger bone.

Nothing cheaper.

It is simple but not necessarily easy.

But you don’t need to be like King Agrippa, to whom the apostle Paul once appealed.

Contrary to what poet John Greenleaf Whittier once wrote in ‘Maud Muller,’ the saddest words might not be: “It might have been.”

They might be: “Almost thou persuadest me.”

Gentle reader, you needn’t have buyer’s remorse.