#214 Within One's Comfort Zone Principle and Common Theories (12/07/2026)

I recently learned two principles at work that I've found to be quite useful in life, so I'm writing them down here.

The "Common Use Theory" (a name I came up with, so you won't find it on Google) states that we should assess the value we place on things based on how often they are used. It sounds obvious when stated, but often we tend to overlook it. Let me give you an example: Perhaps you don't usually drive to work, but you feel a strong urge to drive, and you think it would be nice to buy a car to drive around on weekends. In this situation, of course, you would consider both new and used cars. There are many options for as little as tens of thousands of dollars, and you can afford them. But then you look at cars costing around a hundred thousand dollars. If you don't test drive them, you might not notice a difference, but once you do, you realize there's a significant difference. So, you start thinking about buying a car in the hundred-thousand-dollar range. You can absolutely afford this price too. According to the Common Use Theory, in this scenario, since you'll only be driving the car on weekends, you absolutely shouldn't buy an expensive one. Moreover, you might not have driven before, and you've only recently felt this urge to drive. You also don't have any practical need for it. You might drive for a while and then lose interest. If you spend too much, and cars are essentially depreciating consumables that might not retain much value when you try to sell them, then you should actually consider buying a cheaper car to start with, or even just renting one on weekends. Similarly, I recently heard a very wealthy senior colleague say that many people might have a romantic idea of buying a property elsewhere (outside of Hong Kong) to use as a holiday home after retirement. He also did this but eventually sold all of them. He said it very politely, but the gist of it was that managing two houses with a physical distance between them is very troublesome. You'd worry if there's flooding during a typhoon, whether you need to go check on it, and there are many other practical matters to manage, like paying management fees, etc. And with such a big world, you might not actually want to live only there after retirement; Airbnb might be a better option. Instead, your home in Hong Kong is where you spend most of your time, where your friends and children are, and where your social circle is. This house is actually more important and more worth living in comfortably. Not to mention distant places, even just in Hong Kong, friends who own two houses know that if your other house is empty and you're not living in it, even if it's still in Hong Kong, managing it in a different district can be troublesome.

Perhaps having tenants is even better, as someone is looking after the house. Of course, we can't foresee everything in life, but if there's still time to change, or if you haven't made that decision yet, then you can alter it. This applies not only to houses and cars, but to many things. If something is used often, it's worth investing in a better quality (this sounds like a sales pitch, but it's true for bedding – once you've used good quality bedding, you'll realize the old ones weren't bad, but since you use them every night, it's worth getting good ones; sleeping well is very important). There are other things in life too that you might want to consider.

The "Comfortable within Capability Theory" is about not pushing yourself too hard to the limit when doing things; it's about staying comfortable within your capabilities. I can talk about this now, but actually, signing the Disney Licensing agreement to launch a Disney bedding collection was pushing us quite close to our limits. Of course, we couldn't sell the Disney licensed bed sheets at too high a price to avoid burdening consumers. Therefore, a lot of the profit that might have been earned from other products ended up subsidizing the Disney product, which ultimately caused some difficulties for the company. Of course, you might argue that Disney could provide us with a certain reputation and trust from customers for Re Pillow, and that's something that cannot be quantified and is true. But if I were to look back and decide whether to do it again, I might have a different thought. Of course, one might say there are no "ifs" in life, but we learned from these experiences, and we apply that lesson to other matters as well.