Saturday night my wife and I went out for a really nice dinner at a very high end restaurant. How high end? The main courses cost about as much as our normal weekly food bill. The entire evening cost about as much as groceries for a month. Rest assured, that wasn't a place we could afford to eat on a regular basis. It was one really terrific meal though.

Over coffee the next morning we pronounced the previous evening a resounding success - the best meal we'd ever enjoyed together. We want to go back sometime because really enjoyed ourselves. It was well worth the tremendously high price.

But the conversation got me to thinking about the question of how much is enough. Wouldn't it be great to have the disposable income to go to that restaurant whenever we felt like it?

And here's the important realization we came to: We both want to keep evenings like that special. Even though we'd like to go back there again tonight for another fabulous meal, we don't want to establish that experience as the norm. For one thing, we can't afford to; but we also can't help but wonder what would be special after meals like this become normal? And maybe more importantly, is it worth the time and effort in life to attain the means to find out?