There’s a kind of road trip that only exists in Mongolia. You drive out of the city and at some point the road stops being a road and all you see is a vast grassland and a faint dirt road. There is no destination to reach, no reservation to make in advance, no one waiting for you. You stop where the land looks good to you and sleep anywhere you’d like. The billions of stars become your roof, and the thick green grass becomes your mattress. The gentle night breeze cuddles you to sleep. In the morning, the air in Mongolia is soooooo crisp that it cleanses your soul, and you feel like you’re breathing for the first time. This was my childhood, and I didn’t know how rare and luxurious it was until now.
Although I was never a big fan of luxury cars and name-brand items, I was curious. The way you’re curious about a language you don’t speak. Yachts. A Lamborghini. Mykonos in August.It all looked luxurious, like the answer to a question I hadn’t articulated yet.
In my culture, you’re taught early that a person’s wealth doesn’t tell you anything about them. Neither does their title, their degree, or their car. What tells you something is their attitude, their consciousness, and their backbone. Everything else is decoration. That’s how I was raised, and that’s what I believe to this day and probably until the day I die.
And the thing my parents actually valued — the thing they called real luxury without using the word — was freedom.
But what is freedom? My family defines it in specifics. Physical health. Owing nothing to anybody. Tenacity. The courage to walk away. It’s such a luxury to have the confidence to leave behind your comfort and luxuries, knowing you have to start from zero again and knowing you will be okay. And the ability to drive into the countryside and stop wherever you want, for as long as you want, because nothing is holding the other end of your rope.
The older I get, the more I think they were right. The steppes were a luxury. The air was a luxury. The horses, the sheep, the mountains, the limitless grass — all luxuries. Because I realized they were rare and that I was free to experience them.
Here’s the part I’m still working out.
I could still do that trip. Nothing physically stops me. But I’ve built an adult life and that life has a shape, and the shape has obligations. What’s strange is that the obligations aren’t a mistake — I chose them in pursuit of a different set of freedoms and luxuries. Ones I want just as badly.
So the freedom my parents described and the life I’m actually building in conflict with each other.
One is the luxury of having no rope. The other is the luxury of handing the rope to my dreams.
I don’t think I have to solve this because in this season I choose to be tied. In another season, I’d choose to lose the rope and walk away.
These are mine and are random. They are luxuries to me because I find them quite rare and cherish them to close my heart. The first three are by far the most important and are above the rest by far.
Knowing your partner and your family are on your side, at all times, without conditions.
Having people who will call you out when you’re wrong — and who will also back your most unhinged plans with a completely straight face.
Relationships that have survived life tests
Living close enough to your friends and family that dinner doesn’t require a calendar. No planning, no travel. You just come over without notice lol.
Having your gym, home, and office within a fifteen-minute walk of each other.
Eating home-cooked fresh meals everyday
Having no debt. No student loans. Nothing with your name on it that someone else is counting.
Buying fun drinks without doing the math first. It’s eight dollars. The luxury is not necessarily the eight dollars — it’s the eight seconds you didn’t spend calculating.
Having a passion you actually enjoy, not one you perform.
Weekends that belong to that passion instead of to recovery.
A job you like enough to lose sleep over. I know how this sounds. But there’s a specific kind of poverty in not caring what happens at work, and I’ve been there before, and I’d take the stress.
And honestly, speaking from the discussions I had with my family, I am pretty sure they would agree with me and would find these luxurious, but at the same time they might see the weights in them. I think luxury is about enjoying the freedom to chase your dreams and goals and having the courage to walk away when the time comes. I’ve realized that a lot of the time we are the ones who are limiting ourselves.
If you’ve already realized it, you’re living a luxurious life.
I know some of these are not luxuries to you at all and might look ordinary. So I’d like to know yours.