The Best Way To Enjoy Luxury!
As I write this, I’m sitting in my room in the suite my mother and I are sharing at the Ritz Carlton. One of my cousins just got married, and this hotel suite has been our home base for the festivities. Though my out-of-town family is staying here to be near to the bride and groom, I’m here purely for the luxury. Because the truth is, we’re in New York City, and I live just a few blocks away–in my not-quite-as-ritzy apartment.
I’ve been lucky in my life to have been able to experience bursts of opulence and luxury every so often. I say “bursts” because my day-to-day life has always been pretty run-of-the-mill (I mean, heck! You all already know I don’t have a dishwasher and that I have to go ALL THE WAY AROUND the block to do my laundry). But I love being able to bask in luxury when I can.
Our suite has two marble bathrooms, four gigantic windows–one of which has a spectacular view of the Statue of Liberty (did I mention they also have a telescope in each room for better viewing of the Statue of Liberty?). And the suite is big enough that it even has its own windowed hallway (for those of you unfamiliar with NYC, an apartment big enough to HAVE it’s own hallway is a rarity). And housekeeping lays out chocolates and slippers by the beds every night when they come to turn down the sheets.
Definitely not what I get at home.
But the one thing that occurs to me every time I let myself bask in beautiful, cocooned luxuriousness like this is that it’s SO important that I remember to be present with it, to relish it, to be grateful for it, and to receive it like it’s a very special treat and to NEVER let myself become so used to it or jaded by it that I start to think it’s normal and then start to find flaws in it–you know, if the slippers are laid out wrong, or they leave me two pieces of dark chocolate instead of one dark and one milk, or if they only re-hang up my Ritz bathrobe instead of bringing in a fresh one for me.
You see, as much as I LOVE luxury and special treatment, the moment I get used to it and think it’s baseline normal, it ceases to be a luxury and then makes regular day-to-day life seem seriously disappointing by comparison. Once ONLY luxury is acceptable to me, regular life can only make me unhappy.
Right now, I think it’s hilarious that the housekeeper comes in here, turns down my bed and leaves me chocolates and slippers. However, if I ever got to the point where I’d be angry or unhappy if someone DIDN’T lay down slippers for me beside my bed, then I know it would take more and more and more to make me feel like I was receiving something special and life would start to seem very bleak very, very quickly.
Receiving special things is SO MUCH FUN. But the key to keeping it special it is to REMEMBER that it’s special while it’s happening. If we ever start to take it for granted, we run the risk of luxury ruining the wonderful parts of normal life and making us unhappy as a result. (Which is crazy, because the whole point of luxury is to enjoy all of life MORE).
Do you have luxuries you’ve gotten used to, have taken for granted, and now expect? Have those luxuries affected the “lesser” things and experiences that you used to enjoy? (Like if you always enjoyed instant coffee, then started grinding your beans fresh and now are appalled that you ever swallowed instant coffee in the first place?)
Enjoy the luxuries around you. Just be sure that when you do, you remember that it’s ICING on the cake–not the cake itself, so that you’ll continue to love the real life you have AND the perks that get thrown in. Life is better with BOTH–and the way you make sure to always have both is to remember that luxury is LUXURY. It’s SPECIAL. Once you let it become “normal” both the icing and the cake become far less tasty. And, in my opinion, cake, life, and luxury are all supposed to be DELICIOUS!
Tags: happiness, luxury, luxury hotels, Money, perks, servants, special treatment, spoiled, swag, unhappiness
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