You pay the bill for convenience

Some of you are old enough to remember “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” Robin Leach hosted it, and he ended every episode wishing us “champagne wishes and caviar dreams.” We stared at the mansions, the yachts, the private jets and we whispered to ourselves: someday.

I am not here to kill the dream. I am here to read you the fine print. Because after decades of airports, hotels, and lines that seem to barely move, I have arrived at one stubborn conclusion. Convenience always sends a bill. It just comes later.

Now, let me be fair before anyone gets offended. This is not an attack on people who have earned their success. If you built a business and your calendar looks like a ransom note, then paying for speed and comfort so you can do more good for more people is not vanity. It is arithmetic. Book the earlier flight. You earned it. This one is for the rest of us, the folks who have not made their first million but have already rehearsed, in vivid detail, how they will spend it. The ones who want the look of the rich and famous long before the substance shows up.

Money is wonderful at deleting small problems. It quiets the worry about the electric bill. It buys back the hours you used to lose on chores you hated. That kind of spending buys happiness by subtracting misery. No argument from me. The trouble is, nobody can find the “off” switch. So we keep buying our way out of every tiny annoyance. First the real burdens. Then the imaginary ones. One day you are no longer stressed about the price of groceries. You are personally offended because the hotel brought the wrong pillow. And the server brought the wrong dish. That is the moment the bill quietly begins to grow.

However, a little inconvenience is not the enemy. It is the gym for strength building. Every time you deal with a small hassle, you are doing one rep. You are building the muscle that lets you handle the big surprises life eventually mails you, postage due. Remove every hassle, and that muscle quietly wastes away.

I have watched it happen. Perfectly capable adults, cushioned on every side, who then come completely undone by the smallest bump. It is the first-class passenger undergoing an existential crisis over a two-hour weather delay. It is the person who cannot locate the kitchen when the household help takes a day off. It is the fellow silently seething because the app picked a route with three extra traffic lights. None of them are bad people. Nobody signs up to become that person. It just happens, one avoided inconvenience at a time, until a flat tire seems like a personal betrayal by the universe.

So what do we do about it? Simple. Keep a little friction in the budget. On purpose. Take the stairs when the elevator is right there. Stand in line like everybody else. Carry your own bag. Be kind to the servers and the security guards. Do one slightly hard thing every week that you could easily pay someone else to do. Not because you are broke. Because you are frugal and wise. Humility is not weakness. It is staying close enough to ordinary life and totally in touch with reality.

Here is the happy secret at the bottom of all this. The smooth, frictionless, perfectly staged life is also the forgettable one. Nobody sits around years later laughing about the flight that departed exactly on time. We tell the story about the lost luggage. The reservation that disappeared. The downpour that ruined the garden wedding that left us eating soggy sandwiches while laughing. Or perhaps it is being trapped for seven hours on a flooded expressway, sharing the frustration of everyone around you, while knowing that some people may have profited from the very systems that failed them. Worse, that privilege can be passed on to children who grow up insulated from inconvenience, and eventually, from reality itself.

Do not despise inconvenience and friction. Sometimes, friction is the flavor. Remove every delay, every struggle, every small discomfort, and life can become strangely bland. Robin Leach once gave us “champagne wishes and caviar dreams.” I would wish all of us something better, and much cheaper: a life with just enough inconvenience to keep us humble, grateful, alert and fully alive.

And I sometimes wonder about those mansions, yachts, and lavish lifestyles Robin Leach once featured. Are they still around today? Perhaps some have aged, depreciated, or become expensive burdens to maintain. Wealth may look glamorous when it is acquired, but the more interesting question is whether the next generation can preserve, sustain and expand it. Because even wealth has maintenance costs. For all we know, some of those champagne wishes are still paying the bill.

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Join Francis Kong for The Winning Edge, a one-day seminar-workshop on Oct. 21 at the Palm Grove, Rockwell Club, Makati, designed for emerging leaders, high-potential professionals, entrepreneurs, next-generation executives and young family members being prepared to take over the business. A practical and inspiring learning experience focused on personal growth, leadership readiness, confidence, discipline, and the mindset needed for the next level. For inquiries and registration, contact April at +63 928 559 1798 or Sylene at +63 976 638 8974.