I wondered what I should write about first.
Rather than digging through memories and trying to choose something, I figured it would be easier not to overthink it and simply write about “the most recent thing I bought.”
So, this is about my wallet.
It Had Been on My Mind for Years.
Someone I work with once told me, “If you’re buying leather goods, Bottega is the way to go.”
That must have been years ago now.
For some reason, those words stayed with me, and whenever I passed one of their stores, I found myself looking.
Then one day, I had a chance to actually pick up one of their pieces at a department store.
I was struck by the feel of the leather.
It simply felt incredibly good in my hands. And suddenly, I understood exactly what people meant when they said it was “good.”
Still, I didn’t really have a reason to buy one.
For one thing, I already had a wallet.
I’d been using the same one for more than ten years—a long wallet made from cordovan, leather from a horse’s hindquarters. I still loved the way it felt.
I had no complaints.
Or at least, I thought I didn’t.
Then I Started Wearing Jackets More Often.
As I began choosing jackets more often when going out, I found myself increasingly wanting to leave the house with nothing in my hands.
Until then, I’d carried a small shoulder bag with my wallet, keys, phone, and a few other things.
But a voice in my head kept getting louder:
“If the wallet were thin enough, couldn’t I just put everything in my jacket pockets?”
That desire became strong enough to get past the second problem:
It wasn’t exactly cheap.
Well, actually, that’s not quite true.
I didn’t really get past it.
I just “decided not to think about it.”
I already knew I loved the way it felt, and now I had a genuine reason to buy it.
The only thing standing in the way was that voice in my head:
“Do you really need it? Wouldn’t you be perfectly fine without it?”
So I “decided to ignore it.”
I wanted to simply trust and value my own sense of what feels good to me.
And somehow, that also felt connected to the idea of taking better care of myself.
The Feel of Happiness.
Even just touching it feels good.
If I’m going to carry fewer things, then having those few things be “things that feel good to me” seems like a small kind of happiness.
And of course, I’m genuinely grateful to be in a position where I can make that choice at all.
There were probably countless reasons I could have found not to buy it.
But none of those reasons had anything to do with happiness.
When I’m holding something I truly love, I can understand that—not with my head, but simply by how it feels.
At least, that’s how it seems to me.
