In games

In games, rare equipment isn’t always better.

Some rare gear just looks fancy but has terrible stats. Glowing effects, cool appearance, limited edition skins. None of these increase your attack power.

Experienced players know that leveling efficiency matters most. Don’t care about how pretty or rare the equipment is. Focus on its stats and attribute bonuses. More stats = higher grinding efficiency.

The right approach? Sell rare but useless equipment to players who chase vanity, and trade for things that actually boost your power, like useful gear or skills. Wait until you’re high level before caring about cosmetics.

Same goes for consumables. Nobody drinks a potion labeled “HP -30,” even if it’s free. Consumables are gone once you use them. At least make sure the effect is positive.

Check the stats first, then decide if it’s worth using.

In reality

In reality, most of the “legendary equipment” we buy only has vanity value with no actual function.

Designer bags don’t hold more stuff than regular backpacks. Limited edition sneakers won’t make you run faster. Branded logo tees don’t last longer than plain ones. Diamonds are just decorative items.

These things won’t make you stronger. They slow down your leveling speed. Money that could have been invested in yourself becomes useless equipment.

Consumables are even worse. Some things cost money, disappear after one use, and come with negative stats.

In a game, you’d never drink an “HP -50” potion. But in real life, we do it every day and call it “treating ourselves.”

Cigarettes: Money -200, Lung capacity -30, Addiction +100. The only “positive stat” is the addiction itself.

Alcohol: Money -500, Liver -20, Judgment -50, Next-day efficiency -100.

Shark fin and bird’s nest: Money -5,000, Nutrition +2. A cup of soy milk that costs 15 cents has more nutritional value.

All-you-can-eat buffet: Money -800, Health -30, Afternoon efficiency -100. Then you spend two hours collapsed on the couch, with guilt for dessert.

If these were items in a game, nobody would use them. But in real life, we call them “enjoying life” and “treating ourselves.”

Vanity stats won’t help you level up. Negative-stat consumables even less so.

Buy only useful equipment.

Player notes

After I learned to read food labels, my entire spending mindset changed.

Ingredient lists on food packaging are sorted by content. Whatever’s listed first is what there’s most of. One day I took a careful look around the supermarket and realized that over ninety percent of drinks have the same top two ingredients: “water” and “sugar.” Put those together and you get one word: sugar water.

Then I thought: if this were a game item with stats reading “HP -10, Focus -20, Addiction +30,” would I drink it? Of course not.

Snacks are even worse. Flip to the back and there are dozens of chemical names you can’t pronounce. You just know it’s nothing good.

Modern food companies, in the pursuit of profit, constantly research how to cut costs, make food tastier, and make it more addictive. Preservatives, artificial flavoring, food coloring, cheap oils. Sure, it tastes great. But what happens when you eat this stuff long-term? Nobody knows.

So I made a simple rule for myself: try to eat things that people a hundred years ago would have also eaten. If the ingredient list has more than five items, you can probably skip it. Drinks? Just drink water.

Since then, I barely buy drinks or snacks anymore. Saving money is one thing, but more importantly, I don’t want to feed myself negative stats.

That same mindset changed how I view other “equipment” too.

My dad loved collecting antiques and luxury watches. Paintings, jade, and when it came to watches, Rolex and Patek Philippe. He clearly just enjoyed collecting, but he’d say they were family heirlooms for me someday.

I never understood the antiques, but seeing too many watch ads and echoing others, I once thought mechanical watches were cool too. All that talk about “craftsmanship,” “artisanal art,” “a man’s romance.”

But I later realized: mechanical watches are the ultimate vanity stat equipment. Inaccurate timekeeping, high maintenance costs, and heavy. Purely for showing off.

Rolex produces over a million watches per year. That’s not rare, that’s mass production.

Later my dad went into debt and couldn’t even pay for living expenses. I helped him sell all the luxury watches to watch shops. As expected, all at a loss. The so-called “value retention” is a lie. If he had invested that money in index funds back then, he could buy dozens of the same watches now.

The antiques? Still unsellable, even now when he desperately needs the money. “Valued but no market.” Just taking up space.

I wear a Garmin now. Heart rate monitoring, step counting, vibration alarm, multiple time zones, meditation timer. The price is a fraction of the Rolex I once wanted. Great value for money.

I’ll never touch mechanical watches again.

Real family heirlooms don’t have to be objects—they can be skills, knowledge, experience, and the right money mindset.

Leveling tips

□ Before buying anything, ask yourself: will this help me grind more efficiently? Or is it just vanity +100?
□ Flip it over and read the ingredients. The top two ingredients tell you what it really is. If it’s “water” and “sugar,” it’s sugar water, no matter what the bottle says
□ Next time you want to “treat yourself,” write a stat panel for it first. If there’s more red text than green, it’s not a reward. It’s a penalty
□ Remember: levels and skills are portable, vanity equipment is all show and no substance