[mccon104]

You're missing the point.

First nice =! expensive. It's a subjective term meant to allow you to find your own definition. The whole point is one you seem to be in need of (don't focus on "specs" or "definitives" and just find a bed and bedding that you love. If it is more expensive then it's money well spent.)

Re: farmer v doctor- again you're focusing on the "detail" of the advice and while totally missing the point. The point of that advice is that prevention (whatever you personally define as such) and taking care of your long-term health is a far better option than waiting until something breaks.

You seem to want this advice to offer the exact recipe for a better life. You expect it to contain the scientifically proven facts. Unfortunately that's not how good advice works. Good advice gives you perspective while leaving the details up to you.

<mild_snark>

Finally most of the advice deals with this thing called "joy". you'll find that scientifically speaking there is no agreed upon universally measurable "joy" metric. In lieu of science I recommend creating your own totally subjective definition of joy and applying it to as much of your life as possible. I have no facts to give you as to why this improves your life so you're going to have to trust me... But it does. Vastly.

</mild_snark>

And that is the big picture that each piece of advice is offering you.

[heyitsnick]

"First nice =! expensive. It's a subjective term meant to allow you to find your own definition."

The words 'cheap' and 'expensive' appeared 6 times in the article. I guess cheap can be used metaphorically but generally they are used to describe specifically the cost of the item. So I'm really not clear what point you are making. At no point did I confuse the concepts of 'nice' and 'expensive'.

"The point of that advice is that prevention [...] and taking care of your long-term health is a far better option than waiting until something breaks."

No, the point made was that prevention is orders of magnitude cheaper. It's you that seems to be confusing cost with a more subjective 'better'.

As for your mild_snark remark, all I can say is you've clearly not read my comments in this thread.

The topic of the question was:

"life lessons [that] are unintuitive or go against common sense or wisdom"

'prevention is better than waiting until something breaks', 'spend money on a good bed', are these really unintuitive? Do they go against common-sense?

As a hypothetical example, I would consider a good response to this question would be a well-cited example of how in fact a really cheap bed made out cardboard in fact gave the best nights sleep, or how actually it's a lot cheaper to ignore diet and deal with it later.