“Indulgence” is a slippery concept in a thriving consumer society. Anything beyond food, shelter, and water is, in a hyper-literal sense, an indulgence. But, of course, none of us think like that. What we call an indulgence is less predicated on what we believe is necessary than on what contrasts with the normal patterns of everyday life. No real surprise then that Upper Middle’s “Small Indulgences” survey showed high-earning professionals overwhelmingly labeling activities and expenses associated with ostensibly non-productive personal time indulgences. These far-from-decadent luxuries – a manicure, a second streaming subscription, a fancy seltzer, a $6 latte – present breaks from lives optimized for quantifiable production.
Because “indulgences” are often constitute aberrant behaviors jammed into overscheduled lives, many high-earning professionals react to questions about these minor luxuries with elaborate justifications – if no pre-emptive defensiveness. And so indulgence is often framed rhetorically as a necessity. Strangely, this might be true. People need to maintain an emotional equilibrium in a life built around output and indulgences help allow for that. Seen through that lens, avocado toast is really a coping mechanism.
The Necessity of Unnecessary Things
Coffee was the most commonly cited indulgence under $20[3]. Though 30.2% of respondents cited coffee, most framed it as a ritual or addiction—not a pleasure. Indulgences, it seems, are often necessities in disguise. This suggests that people have fully accepted the premise that expensive caffeine drinks are an indulgence, but don’t actually experience them that way.
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