When we think of how wealthy people live, we think of the “luxury” lifestyle: yachts, caviar, vacations to the south of France. The common thread between cashmere and bottle service is the expense, the wild price tags that imply luxury. As such, it seems that luxury equals expensive which equals exclusive.

However, if I take a Hanes hoodie, scribble on a few shapes with a sharpie, and try to sell it for $300, it is still not a luxury hoodie, although expensive. Alternatively, if I spend an entire Wednesday afternoon lounging on a beach with a mimosa in hand, my lifestyle is definitely luxurious, but not expensive. While the sharpied hoodie is exclusive, it is not desirable, but the beach day is both exclusive and desirable. Price need not be part of the equation. 

So, what really is luxury? Many people have a loose understanding that luxury is something that makes them feel wealthy and pampered. Classy. Luxury is implicitly something that rich people can experience, but is exclusive to those more poor. However, the filter is often less about price and more about the lifestyle it demands.

Take the Ironman Triathlon for example: a 2.4 mile swim, followed by a 112 mile bike ride, capped off with a 26.2 mile run. The Ironman is not only an incredibly impressive race, but also a very wealthy one, with the average participant’s salary sitting at $247,000.

At face value, there aren’t massive class barriers to completing an Ironman. A pair of decent running shoes are $100 on sale, a secondhand road bike can be had for $400, a low-end wetsuit is $100, and the race entry fee is $375. Rounding up for miscellaneous expenses, that’s a total of $1,000. Certainly not cheap, but that’s also about $500 less than the average American spends on Christmas shopping. 

The Ironman is unattainable to the middle class not because of sticker price, but because of the lifestyle it requires. To prepare for an Ironman, an athlete should train for 2 to 4 hours per day, while maintaining a nutritionally dense diet. That is not practical for the average American that works overtime, needs to pick up their kid from soccer practice, and has an unfolded pile of laundry sitting on a chair.

Even if our average American pulled together some superhuman time management skills to meal prep and train, their experience would be pretty demotivating. Assuming they live in a middle America town like Wichita, Kansas, they would have only four months a year of sunny weather for outdoor training and the only place to open water swim would be in the Arkansas River alongside the cargo ships ferrying grain. Attempting an Ironman as an average American is theoretically possible, but it would really not be fun. 

Looking at the products, services, and lifestyles associated with the wealthy, you’ll find a myriad of inexpensive yet unattainable luxuries. Princeton University is free to attend for students from families with under $100,000 in annual income, but the average Princeton student’s family income is $186,000. Those families have the resources to provide their children with tutoring, enriching extracurriculars, and critically, a living environment that promotes scholarship. As a result, elite colleges become primarily composed of children of the upper and upper-middle class. Princeton may not be expensive, but it is a luxury. 

Luxury is not defined by exclusivity through price, but exclusivity through value. Health and education are universally desired, but Ironmans and Princeton are selectively accessible. A product or service is a luxury not because rich people have it, but because it provides inherent value you want but can’t get.   

This is why luxuries that we indulge in should be those that align tightly with our values. Corporate executives often fly in private jets, but shareholders certainly aren’t paying for a $70 million Gulfstream because they care about the CEO’s prestige or comfort. That corporate jet allows more factory visits in less time, making it a tool in service of productivity. 

The luxuries we covet are therefore a statement of our values. A Patek Philippe is only a luxury as far as it promotes the values of craftsmanship and social status. If you optimized for different values, like accuracy or durability, it would lose to a $30 Casio. In some cultures, luxury is having multiple wives. For tech CEO Bryan Johnson, it’s spending $2 million a year to reverse his epigenetic age. Behind every luxury is a value proposition. 

Luxury is not a feature in of itself, but a proxy for health, time, convenience, comfort, craft, beauty, and a million other traits of desire. The good news is, we don’t need a private jet to be more productive, or spend $2 million to live a healthy life. Good values do not require luxury, but good luxury requires good values.