The problem with opulence: the more you pay for a service (meal, hotel, airplane ticket), the more dissatisfied you will be with the smallest imperfection, the slightest error.

Compare constipated old Park Avenue couples riding first class, for whom traveling is some kind of exercise in bitterness, to partying passengers in the back of the plane for whom any beer is “good enough”. It is as if life wanted to get even with them.

Which leads to the paradox that the only way to properly enjoy wealth is to avoid spending it.

via The problem with opulence: the more you pay for… – Nassim Nicholas Taleb.