RICH AS A KING

History books are filled with wealthy people who were practically destitute compared to me. I have triple-tracked storm windows; Croesus did not. Entire nations trembled before Alexander the Great, but he couldn’t buy cat food in bulk. Czar Nicholas II lacked a compound-miter saw.

Given how much better off I am than so many famous dead people, you’d think I’d be content. The trouble is that, like most people, I compare my prosperity with that of living persons: neighbors, classmates, TV personalities.

There is really no rising or falling standard of living. Over the centuries people simply find different stuff to feel grumpy about. You’d think that merely not having bubonic plague would put us in a good mood. But no, we want a hot tub too.

SOURCE: Condensed from Home, David Owen, in Reader’s Digest, July, 1996, p. 193.