A Nice Life: Is It Worth It?

Today at work I broke the dishwasher.

Some would be proud of this achievement. Not me. I just felt like a complete, drooling idiot. I'd put the wrong kind of detergent in the machine: "dishwashing liquid" rather than "dishwasher liquid". As a result, after a while large amounts of white foam started frothing over the front door of the machine and wouldn't stop even after I'd switched it off. Much moppage was required. The room smelt of lemon.

An argument I've been having with various people recently: is having a "nice life" really what should be done with money? To live in a nice house, spend the extra money to buy top quality brands instead of "saver" varieties, no longer buy Christmas cards at £1 for 100, travel first class sometimes on trains... it seems like the easy way out, an escape route. Much better to save, and to continue saving, for one thing, one ideal. To pour all that money into something you really believe in, or something that you want more than anything else in the world. How can you be satisfied with yourself if you don't? My mother's argument is that there's nothing much that she wants in the world; if anything, all she wants is to have a nice life. In which case all that money would be much better given to people who do have ambitions and ideals, like me.