About Luxury

I'm still sitting blissfully surrounded by work colleagues with whom I'm toasting the weekend, when I'm already overwhelmed by thoughts of tomorrow: I have to paint my old room, buy wall plugs from OBI, which I even have to drill into the wall myself. From tomorrow, I'm not allowed to drink beer outside after 10 p.m. or have a party at home with more than 10 people. At home, where I have no internet, not even a kitchen. I have to dismantle it myself on Sunday, drive halfway across Cologne, unload it and then assemble it later. So much work, so little fun. But that's what the weekend is for, to have fun, to unwind from the week, from all the stress I have to put up with in my regular job with monthly pay, vacation days and breaks. Surely it's not too much to ask that at least something works, that the technician immediately sets up the lines for my online enjoyment, that friends help me transport the furniture and that I can raise a glass with them in the evening? Surely that's the very least? Isn't that my basic right?

This is what I think to myself after returning home stress-free from a late drink, lying on my soft bed and listetning to the music of Siedler IV, on my €300 cell phone. It reminds me of my youth, when I grew up with my brother in an intact marriage and could play games in my own room in peace when I wasn't doing my homework or playing the piano - oh, how easy it was back then. Nowadays, my everyday life is like a marathon, as I have to take care of so many errands, such as picking up the Amazon delivery from the neighbor's house, which is free because of the order value, and which an employee dropped off there. And then I have to spend so much money, up to €8 for a hot, healthy meal, for which I didn't have to do anything other than open my wallet. It's a shame...

I live in pure luxury, I'm the princess and the pea who finds the fly in the ointment while in paradise. What other people pray for and travel thousands of kilometers to find, I was born with. I complain about 90% where others don't even have 5 and curse my life for the missing 10. And I'm not thinking about now, but about the past. When someone writes on Instagram that coronavirus measures are excessive and that we have a right to have fun, I think back to our grandparents who grew up during the war, who suffered hunger and feared for their lives. Their parents, who went through the same thing. And their parents. I think back to their parents who suffered from epidemics and plagues and who got through it all for their children, for us. For spoiled brats who didn't learn to build a sandcastle with the neighbor's child, but preferred to hit them with the shovel. Spoiled brats who cry when a grain of sand flies into their eye while they throw dirt at others. Others who were not lucky enough to live their lives. Who still have to live in similar circumstances today as our grandparents back then, while we stand by and rejoice as our worried mother rubbs our watery eyes clean.

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat the mistakes. Let us learn. Let us learn that what is given is not eternal. We live in a time of prosperity and anyone who can read this text is inevitably one of the privileged of this time - if only because of the author. A little more gratitude and a lot more understanding. A mask does not make a muzzle, a ban on alcohol does not make a ban on joy. These are conditions that we fortunately never had to encounter, but that we now have to learn from what happiness really is. From our ancestors and their fear of war, of the next hail of bombs, of hunger and the question of what tomorrow will bring. For me, tomorrow is Saturday. I'm going to paint my old apartment, so I'll go to the DIY store and buy wall paint and masking tape with my debit card. And I'll be wearing a mask on my way, a reminder of everything we were spared because others got through it for us. A ridiculously small price that I am willing to pay. For the fact that it reminds me of everything I take for granted, for self-evidence. For the security that I don't have to be afraid that my loved ones or I could die at any time. Because that's where the fun ends.