It's Christmas Eve and I'm waiting for my plane at LAX scrolling through my Instagram feed. An image of a turquoise ocean with a wooden pier stretching out towards the horizon displays the inspirational message: Collect memories, not things. This seems to be one of the more universally agreed upon lifestyle choices these days:

Instead of buying an Aquarium, better book that PADI course at the Great Barrier Reef. Resist purchasing those Bose Speakers to instead rave at Tomorrowland. Why spend money on an Ice Cream Maker when you can explore Antartica? Physical things have this reputation of being superficial, shallow, something only the unenlightened assign value to. True meaning in life comes from your experiences, the things you've seen and done, the people you've met. This is what you'll cherish for the rest of your life.

But why is collecting memories a more wholesome, reflected action than buying a sofa?

Initial happiness from both

Well, for starters they are much more similar than they are different. Both give an initial satisfaction: We're happy how the sofa perfectly matches the equally hideous carpet, just as we enjoy watching the Angelfish swim up behind the corals. Then, as our initial excitement starts to fade, we present the sofa, or our vacation pics, to friends, reliving that initial moment of excitement through them, squeezing out the last bit of happiness. At the latest now the initial pleasure we got from both the sofa or the scuba dive has vanished, a feeling of the past.

Can't hold on to either

Okay, maybe the sofa will become dull, but surely remembering enjoyable past activities will give me some current happiness! Let's think about that. Maybe like me, you picture this older, sophisticated man in an armchair, smoking a cigar in front of his fireplace, remembering with a slight smile his youthful times backpacking through Europe. But this guy is in a good place now. His happiness, just as presumably ours, comes mainly from the current life situation, not nostalgic memories. I assume it is much more difficult for the freezing homeless laying on newspapers in a back alley of Seattle to gain contentment from the thought how he once hitchhiked along Route 66.

Simply because you can remember situations in which you were content doesn't necessarily result in you being happy now. The pleasure of past experiences was in that moment, and it's difficult to re-experience those same feelings. Their memory could even cause you to be more unhappy because you have so many exhilarating moments to compare with.

Experiences improve decision making*

Experiences finally gain the upper hand if they reveal something you haven't known before. (This is difficult for the sofa to do because, well... it's a sofa.) This new data allows you to form a more accurate view of how the world works. This more correct world-view enables you to better predict the outcome of your actions. This more accurate prediction helps you choose the action that more likely achieves what you intended. So ultimately some experiences can improve your decision-making skills. And since this skill can really improve life, anything that assists in its development should be desirable.

*Conditions apply

Unfortunately, the experience of watching the sunset in Bali doesn't qualify. Of course, when the sun drops behind the horizon, the orange gradient in the sky and the reflection of the last rays of light shimmering bright from the tips of breaking waves can be breathtaking. And even though this causes momentary happiness (which the sofa does as well though), it will eventually vanish as surely as the object that caused it.

To permanently enhance one's world-view, experiences must contradict something previously believed to be true. That's when they're effective. In those moments that surprise. When you're thinking to yourself: how weird! While everything goes as expected, while you're right, why would any rational person change the way they think. The unexpected is where true value lies because there we were wrong. Only now do we have substance to improve our world-view, data to learn from. So let's collect situations that are unfamiliar, with the goal of experiencing things that are unexpected.