Frankly, we are accustomed to excess in living. That's not a good thing.
Contrast to these few vignettes:
...Simplicity was an instinct rooted in our nation's original culture, as
when Thomas Jefferson took the presidential oath of office and returned
to his boarding house where he waited his turn for dinner, and when
Harry Truman left the White House and drove himself back to Missouri
with no guards and no pension. He did not pretend to be broke because
he was broke, and he refused directorships on corporations, saying it
would be trafficking in the dignity of the presidential office. It
cannot be said that Queen Victoria lived in penury, but she did have her
own notion of domesticity when she darned socks for the Prince of Wales
in Windsor Castle, humming "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like
home." In her youth, she returned from her coronation in the gilded
state coach, took off her ermine robes, put on an apron and gave her dog
a bath....
One may argue that, despite the excess we enjoy, we are not of the "entitlement mentality."
That's an excuse?
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