A NY Times Blog by Pico Iyer (one of eight writers invited by the NY Times to write holiday) blogs-an excerpt-Dec. 5, 2007
I wonder sometimes if one of the dark sides of affluence and choice isn’t just that we turn into whining children sure that everything must go our way. If you get off your plane in Delhi, Port-au-Prince or Addis Ababa, you’ll probably notice that no one there expects even the smallest transaction to go smoothly — and as a result, they’re much richer than most of us in terms of patience.

And I wonder if it isn’t really the democracy of travel that many of us are objecting to these days when we speak of more crowded planes and long lines at the airport. In my parents’ youth, after all, plane travel was a thing for the rich few. Starbucks outlets in the terminal; e-mail at 30,000 feet; frequent-flier programs that allow you, as I have done, to fly free to Easter Island, Paris and Cambodia: What is it, exactly, that makes us think that we should complain about sitting in a seat and being taken around the world?

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