It was pouring rain, and I had nothing to do. Perfect day. I curled up on the couch, scrolled my phone, and told a friend, “Rainy naps are the best.” Felt good. But something nagged at me. Why did my version of this experience sound so shallow compared to a Russian aristocrat’s?
I’d just re-read Ivan Bunin’s Antonovka Apples. In it, a landed gentry spends a rainy day indoors — eating apples, reading books, smelling the musty pages. He describes the scent of old leather bindings and the faint aroma of apples from the orchard. His day is poetic, poignant, almost sacred. Mine was a text message. The gap wasn’t money — it was attention.
Let me be blunt: Your salary isn’t the problem. Your perception is.
I’m a high school teacher in a small Chinese city. I earn about 3,500 yuan a month. That’s roughly $485. I have three kids. The math is tight. For a while, I kept trying to buy them happiness the way the ads told me — pricey cuts of pork, chicken wings from the freezer aisle. A meal of sweet-and-sour ribs cost nearly 100 yuan. That’s 3% of my monthly income. My kids loved it. I loved seeing them happy. But I hated the anxiety that came with the price tag.
So I made a choice. I stopped chasing the rib. I started chasing the taste.
I replaced the ribs with a local fish — a humble tilapia, 15 yuan each. I made a sweet-and-sour sauce from scratch. My kids didn’t know the difference. They just knew dinner was delicious. One night, I made steamed fish for my daughter. She picked the flesh off the bone with such care, leaving a perfect skeleton. She looked up and said, “This is the best thing ever.” That fish cost me 27 yuan — less than $4. Her joy was priceless.
That night, I realized something: Happiness isn’t a budget problem. It’s a creativity problem.
And it’s not just about food. In my final lecture before the college entrance exam, I told my students — kids who were told they’d never make it to a top university — that a good life doesn’t require a high salary. I told them about the fish. I told them about the 40-yuan dinner that three children devoured with delight. I told them that whether they become mechanics, farmers, or chefs, they can create the same kind of joy. I saw tears in some eyes. A few pulled out their phones to record me. They weren’t crying because I was poor. They were crying because they suddenly understood something their parents couldn’t afford to teach them: love and craft can turn any meal into a feast.
Look at Bunin’s apple again. The apple wasn’t special. The orchard was decaying. The noble class was fading. But Bunin didn’t write about what he lacked. He wrote about what he sensed. The smell of apples, the crackle of the fire, the velvet of old book covers. He turned a rainy day into eternity. The richest people are not those with the most money, but those who can smell the apple.
We’ve been sold a lie that happiness upgrades require income upgrades. That a better life means a better job, a better house, a better car. But the real upgrade is aesthetic training — learning to find pleasure in what’s already here. This isn’t romanticizing poverty. It’s recognizing that the one thing money can’t buy is the ability to taste life deeply. And that ability can be taught. It can be passed down. My kids now fight over steamed fish. They don’t know it’s cheap. They just know it’s made with love.
The next time you think you need a raise to be happy, ask yourself: Have you really tasted your last meal? Start with that. Everything else is just a bigger paycheck.
FAQ
Q: Isn't this just romanticizing poverty and telling people to settle for less?
A: No. It's about reframing the relationship between money and happiness. You can pursue higher income while also training yourself to extract joy from low-cost moments. The two aren't mutually exclusive. The problem is when people believe that happiness only starts once they earn X amount — that's a trap.
Q: What's the practical takeaway? How do I actually develop this 'aesthetic ability'?
A: Start small. Pick one daily ritual — a meal, a shower, a walk — and do it with full attention. Slow down. Describe the sensations to yourself. That's the training. Over time, your brain rewires to find pleasure in the ordinary. The key is deliberate practice, not passive consumption.
Q: Doesn't this argument ignore systemic inequality? Some people really don't have enough.
A: The argument isn't against addressing systemic issues. It's pointing out that even within your current constraints, there is untapped joy. No amount of structural change will give you the ability to taste an apple if you never learn to pay attention. Both fights matter. But the internal one is accessible to everyone, right now.