Most chairs you will sit on in your life will be weird and uncomfortable, as if the person who made the chair never bothered sitting in it to make sure it “worked”.

For that reason, we come to value the rare comfortable chair we manage to find. We cherish this rare occurrence of a comfortable chair.

When we visit a place with a chair such as a doctor’s office or someone else’s home, and sit in the chair, it is inevitably uncomfortable. What is surprising is that even though we all know most chairs are bad, we are surprised that it’s bad. The badness of the chair is not something we expect in the moment even though we objectively know most chairs are bad - we expect all chairs to be comfortable and perfect.

I am so disappointed in myself. Why would I ever expect the chair to be comfortable?

Beyond this, when we sit in a chair and it is comfortable, we are also surprised!? We are surprised even though we were expecting the chair to be good. At that moment we realise how irrational our expectations were, and our gratitude towards the chair is massive. The comfortable chair has prevailed against all odds.

We know most chairs are bad, yet we expect them to be good when we sit on them. We are surprised when they are bad and also surprised when they are good.