The saddest thing I can imagine is to get used to luxury. — Charles Bukowski

The saddest thing I can imagine is to get used to luxury.

Author: Charles Bukowski

Insight: Most of us imagine luxury as the ultimate fix—that moment when we finally have enough and everything clicks into place. But Bukowski points at something darker: the real danger isn't poverty or struggle. It's the slow fade of gratitude that comes when nice things become normal. Your first apartment with its own kitchen feels like paradise. Five years later, you're annoyed the counter space is cramped. A meal that once felt celebratory becomes Tuesday dinner. This matters because getting used to good things doesn't actually make us happier—it just resets our baseline. We chase upgrades endlessly because each one wears off faster than we expect. The sadness Bukowski describes isn't melodramatic; it's the quiet emptiness of taking everything for granted. A luxury that doesn't move you anymore isn't really a luxury at all. It's just furniture. The trick, if there is one, isn't avoiding nice things. It's occasionally remembering what it felt like before you had them. Not in a guilty way, but as a reset button for wonder. The expensive coffee tastes different when you remember loving instant coffee. That's the real luxury—not the thing itself, but the capacity to still be touched by it.

Source: Barfly, 1987