The Art of Being Difficult to Impress

I've been thinking about taste lately.

Not simply aesthetic taste, although I think we underestimate how much pleasure there is in developing an eye for beauty.

I'm thinking about the taste we develop for our own lives.

Most of us spend our early years inheriting other people's appetites. We learn which accomplishments are impressive, which lifestyles are desirable, which relationships indicate success, and which ambitions make us respectable.

We absorb an extraordinary amount of information about what a good life is supposed to look like before we've had much opportunity to discover what actually delights us.

Then, if we're fortunate, we start getting a little suspicious.

I think one of the great pleasures of getting older is becoming increasingly difficult to impress.

Not because you've become cynical or stopped appreciating beautiful things. Quite the opposite.

You've developed taste.

You know the difference between expensive and exquisite. You understand that an interesting person is not necessarily an important person. You have discovered that a beautiful afternoon can be worth considerably more than an impressive accomplishment.

You can appreciate ambition without worshipping it. You can admire someone's success without wanting their life.

You've had enough experience to recognize the difference between genuine pleasure and the things we've been trained to desire.

This is one of the lovelier freedoms of being a grown woman.

You get to become a connoisseur of your own existence.

You can be extravagant about fresh flowers and completely indifferent to status. You can spend three hours reading something obscure, wear beautiful lingerie for absolutely no audience, and decline an invitation without preparing a legal defense.

Your standards become less concerned with how things look from the outside and considerably more concerned with how they feel to inhabit.

I think that's a very sexy way to live.

And perhaps one of the best things about it is that you become much harder to sell a life you don't actually want.