It is all relative

I get emails from Gilt. It’s fun to see what luxury deals are out there. Most of the time, the bargains are so far out of my world that I don’t even think about them. But it’s occasionally fun to imagine a vacation in Aruba, particularly when it’s -17 degrees (-27 C) outside my window.

This ad was so far out of my realm that I just laughed… two hours on a private jet for $7,700 (regular $10,000).

The funny thing is that I was once (and still am) like those who can afford those two hours. We lived in Nairobi, Kenya, (Africa) for five years. We knew people whose income represented about the same difference between ours and that of Bill Gates. Going out to a Valentine’s Day dinner at a fancy restaurant was about as inconceivable as our hiring a jet for two hours.

It’s good for me to remember that.

How do I deal with that knowledge? My wife and I try to be generous, when possible. We fail, but sometimes we succeed.

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