Some of the things you need aren’t really needs, they are entitlements, not in the legal sense, of course, but in a social sense. They are things you believe you have a right to own or consume. An article, 12 new necessities that drain your cash, lists a few that I have heard people swear they need: premium cable TV, a second car, bottled water. The article makes the point that these entitlements are really more burdensome than they are truly necessary.
It made me think about my own entitlements. Do I have any? How did I get them? I came up with a theory.
Luxury –> Habit –> Entitlement
Entitlements start out as treats, like having a coffee at Starbucks once in a while. Then they become habits. You have a coffee at Starbucks every time you go shopping at the mall with your friends. Finally they pass over from habit that you could skip into a daily necessity. A daily Starbucks fix is so entrenched in the way you live that you can’t imagine what you did without it. You need your entitlements and you can justify them in many ways: you have enough money to afford them, so why not? You need a way to unwind after a long day at work. You always wanted this. You need the caffeine.
So with this in mind, I looked into my life, consulted Tod about our daily habits and found some entitlements. Most of them were pretty minor:
Nice soap. We buy fancy and exotic bath soaps. All different kinds. We started picking them up as souvenirs when we travelled. Now we get them from boutiques locally. Of course Lux or Muse would do just as well.
Expensive lotion. I have been using the same Clinique skin cream for over 20 years. It costs a stupid amount of money. I am sure there is a more reasonably priced substitute.
Good linens. We both love high thread count sheets and big thirsty towels. They do last longer than inexpensive linens and we only have three sheets and two sets of towels, so maybe this isn’t as much an entitlement as good spending.
Imported foods. There are several bottles of fancy olive oil in the pantry. We have Greek olives and French bread from the good bakeries. We seek out imported oddities at the supermarkets.
And there is one really big, wallet-draining, nearly burdensome entitlement in my life. Travel. It absolutely follows the luxury-habit-need pattern. If I do not see some new and different place in the world at least once a year and more like two or thee times annually, I get edgy. I need to travel.
Of course I didn’t used to be this way. Travel was a luxury 20 years ago – we had no money. Any far-flung excursions were occasional, though we did take a lot of day trips and weekends to our friends’ farm in the nearby countryside.
Then we settled into a pattern of traveling to celebrate our anniversary. The trips started out as gift of a weekend at a B&B not too far away from home. It was such fun, we made it a habit that expanded scope when we moved abroad. Now our annual anniversary trips have gotten us to Italy, Ireland, India, Fiji, France, and all over Japan.
And here I am, on the verge of jetting off to Australia for a few weeks to visit a friend, and it isn’t an anniversary trip. This will be my 4th time to Australia. I’ve been to China twice (four times if you count Hong Kong before the handover), to London several times, all over the US and South Asia.
I believe I need travel to keep my creativity and intellect in balance and I can’t imagine life without traveling. Although it is expensive, I have enough money to afford it. I know how fortunate I am to be able to afford this.
But I don’t really need it. I could probably get what I need in my own backyard, just like Dorothy Gale. Maybe.
Do you have any entitlements?
