Timo blog, Mein Luxus, 24th Jan

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My Luxury

My luxury? I have come to know many sorts of luxury, but I can definitely say, which (one) is the nicest. I have always looked at luxury as privilege: privileges for which I should be thankful and (for which) I am. Fast cars [shut up, Di, shut up; I’m laughing too hard at this one], good hotels. Now I know that this kind of luxury doesn’t satisfy you for very long and doesn’t leave you necessarily satisfied. Are you satisfied, if you overdo it? Can you feel good about yourself if you pay 2,000 Euros for a jacket, when someone two blocks away would be delighted about a ten Euro jacket?
I don’t know. My family never had all that much money, so I was never really in touch with luxury. I even slept on the ground for a year and nourished myself with only black bread and cheese. A year later I was lying in the best hotels and their "I sink knee-deep" beds.
Luxury means 'to have too much' or 'to have so much that you don’t need to have thoughts anymore'. If you have decided who you want to be and which goals you want to aspire to, the other happens on its own. You don’t have anymore worries, because you trust yourself and I believe that is real luxury. Simply to be able to go and choose who you are. So many in this world can’t do that. Oppression and force are companions of many people and if are one of the few, who have grown up and can decide, then you can feel luxury in your veins.
Some flee from this luxury, others fight for it and others again never experience it.
Why do we throw this luxury away or frequently ignore it? Mostly we forget.
It was beaten into us as children, that there are goals that are attainable and goals that people so nicely say are “unrealistic”. In my childhood my grandparents often said to me, “Children with volition, get something on the glasses!” [I can’t find a reference for this idiom. I’m hesitating a guess that it means driven kids end up with glasses or having dreams gets you somewhere] It has taken years since I figured out, that even the will (that that will) is something that makes me happy. If you really know what you want, you’ve won. Because we possess the luxury to be able to achieve what we undertake. The hard work is all at once not so hard anymore if we know what we’re doing it for; And once we have achieved a further step up the ladder, it makes us happy.
But why do I always have to remind myself of that?
Why don’t we recognize luxury? Every instant in which you sleep, go forever. So stand up, keep going and you are as awake as possible. My life has taught me that a garden can emerge from every battlefield and I am game. I rake and remove weeds every day. I stand, turn my head to the sun and realize luxury reveals the whole world to me. Do you understand? Everything is there, you only have to take it for yourself.

Translation by Diglossia, http://diglossia-fic.livejournal.com/34050.html#cutid1
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