Deservings

After a lot of arm-twisting and incentivizing during a recent vacation, we agreed to suffer through yet another high-pitched sales presentation for investment in a luxury vacation package.  The acclaimed benefits were astronomical:   Go anywhere, anytime … including luxury resorts in exotic places … for a mere fraction of what it would cost otherwise a la carte over a lifetime, in order to experience all the fun and frivolity we so obviously deserve!  Pick your “Dream Destination”, and simply cash in a few thousand “Points” out of the hundreds of thousands of points your investment will generate, and you’re THERE! 

It was an impressive sell! 

NOTE: The sales pitch contrasted American vacation time (1-3 weeks out of a high-pressured work-life year) to European vacation time (30 days to six months out of a much lower-pressured work-life year) to show how much less than we deserve we’re actually getting.  (REALITY CHECK: The sales pitch didn’t make any pretense of showing us how to extend the vacation time available … it only promised to make the time available much more luxuriantly spent!) 

How we could refuse the offer – especially after they threw in everything except the next newborn from the salesperson’s youngest daughter – was beyond the comprehension of our agent. 

But it came down to a really simple bottom line:  It was simply too much of a good thing – no matter how “reasonable” the price! 

Whoa!

How can THAT be? 

The fact is, I don’t really need to stay in a place that has a toaster and coffee maker that synch with my smart phone.  And I don’t do golf – one of the top drawing cards for associated resorts.  And I haven’t yet used the Jacuzzi in any of the resorts we’ve frequented over the past 20 years … well, maybe once.  And 1,800 square feet of space is way more than we need for simple sleeping headquarters to allow us to enjoy exotic places.  Also, the 60” flat screen TV in every room is a vast overkill for getting daily news and weather sufficient to plan our day or week.  And I don’t really need “Designer” furnishings and classical art on the walls and an exquisite chandelier over the dining room table. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It took some doing, but I tried to explain to the sales agent that my Judeo-Christian/Puritanical work-ethic background had given me a severely truncated idea of what I “deserve” in life, leaving me unable to deal with opulence. 

What I really NEED to make life worthwhile – and what I think I DESERVE – is quite different from the glitz and glamour of exotic places for brief times.  I made a short list, not in any priority order (see Maslow), of things that help “float my boat”, not just once or twice a year, but nearly every day:

• Absence of deprivation
• Equal opportunity for self-development/self-actualization/self-expression
• A sense of personal worth
• Cleanliness
• A sense of “order”
• Fairness / Justice
• Security
• Opportunities for life-long learning
• The chance for advancement
• Respite from debilitating stress
• Health and Wellness
• Decency
• Respect
• Engagement with “respectable” others
• Reinforcement of a sense of humor
• Access to high quality entertainment
• The chance to advance the civilization of which I am a part

Curiously, most of the things I NEED and DESERVE from this list require a substantial investment on my own part.  To attain a sense of worth, respect and engagement with respectable others, I need to earn the right.  To attain Health and Wellness, I need to eat right, exercise, get appropriate rest and eliminate unnecessary stress. 

To be really honest and fair, I might add to my list the need and desire, if not the deserving, of World Peace, in addition to elimination of world hunger, ignorance (Stupidity should be self-limiting, but hardly ever is!), and epidemic disease. 

Final Thought: Doing the daily grind with only the vision and possibility of remote respite, and saving up all of one’s “reward points” until that hallowed one-week or two-week reprieve in an exotic place happens, leaves one at least 50 weeks short in a year of things we may “deserve” otherwise.  How we use our TIME – each and every hour/day/week – and how we sort and execute our personal CHOICES gets us more – or less – of everything we need and deserve.  If we choose to watch 6 hours of TV per day or to be inextricably immersed in social media, we’ll sacrifice a good deal of personal and professional development, not to mention stress-busting exercise, meditation, or inspiration, plus a whole lot of future BLUE-CHIP CHOICES.

Cautionary Notes:  1) It’s tempting to escalate “wants” into “needs” and into “deservings”.  There’s only a thin and blurry line of separation across the board that’s easy to confabulate and manipulate; 2) Very few of us get everything we deserve (that’s both the Good News and Bad News!)  There’s an entropic tax to be paid and a “conscionability” delay imposed before the fruits of deservings can be realized;  3) It’s more than OK to have a critical mass of “deservings” in escrow for “rainy day”; and 4) The formulation that works best in a capitalistic environment is: “If you WANT more or NEED more, DESERVE more!”
    

Codicil:  Spending a week or two in an exotic place is not a sin.  Take it if you can get it!  But don’t spend it all in a Jacuzzi or on the golf course or simply doing buffets in high-caliber restaurants.  Go explore, learn about other cultures and geographies and history, get some fresher air and exercise, and take some inspirational/meditative reading material along.  Regenerate, don’t Degenerate!  You NEED it.  And, if you can get it, you probably DESERVE it!   Quartermaster