Appreciating Luxury

I have spent a good portion of my life doing what we are conditioned to do – to work, and work and work in order to achieve, to accumulate, to succeed. I spent many years working 12-hour days trying to write, edit and be generally productive and generate money in addition to keeping house, cooking, raising children and constantly worrying about not being enough in any or all aspects of my life.

It was exhausting. I was thinking last night that all that exhaustive pushing to accomplish didn’t get me where I ultimately thought I wanted to go. I worked mornings and nights, holidays and weekends, when I was sick and tired and I never had that moment when I was a NYT Bestselling author or when my bank account topped six digits.

I missed a lot of days at the park with my kids, a lot of sunny summer afternoons while I stared at a computer screen. But I was conditioned, I suppose, by that old story about the grasshopper and the ants. You work your butt off now so that you can cozy up later and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Well, I did the work. I ignored the call to play and relax and now that it’s time to cozy up, there’s still no pile of gold to lie on.

I occurred to me that maybe it’s time to start appreciating what I have instead of knocking myself out to acquire more that I will never have the time or the energy to enjoy.

I realize that I am surrounded by luxury, and I’ve been taught not to see it. I don’t mean that I have champagne and caviar at my disposal. I mean that I have so many things that in so many places on this planet are considered luxuries. I have a nice home and healthy children and a wonderful husband. I have a job and a car and clean clothes and the ability to decide to relax in a hot bath on a Saturday night after a nice dinner. I can go food shopping or clothes shopping any time I want, and if I’m not feeling well, I can take a paid sick day from my job and see a doctor of my choosing. [Granted the health care situation in this country is a big joke, but it’s better than in many places.]

We are conditioned to take all this for granted in the first world. I’m supposed to be indignant when I have to wait on line for gas, or when the local coffee shop closes down and I can’t grab a latte on the way to work or when the mail is delivered after 5:00 PM or the garbage isn’t taken off the street before noon.  But what we really should be taught is that drinking clean water from a cold fridge is a luxury. Putting on warm socks on a cold night, turning up the heat a few degrees and climbing into a bed of clean sheets and fluffy pillows is a luxury. Going to work at a job that pays me not only to show up, but to stay home on holidays and vacations and sick days is a luxury. Deciding to sit on the couch and read a book, or write a book of my choosing – is a luxury.

I’ve decided that from this point forth, I will make an effort to appreciate the luxuries I have accumulated in my life. I’m not saying I’m going to stop trying to achieve, but my priority now is going to be to enjoy what I have instead of slavishly pushing to have more before I can finally consider myself a success and enjoy the fruits of my labors.

I have decided that I have enough and I am enough. I’ve been an ant long enough. 

Now I’m a grasshopper.