Do you have an especially luxurious pillow, an elaborately designed kitchen table, or an extraordinarily comfortable couch? These things may make you happy, and help you feel that you are truly at home, but they’re not necessities. Instead we can define these as amenities, luxuries or creature comforts. In most definitions creature comforts are things not really needed by humans, but that improve comfort or a sense of being at ease.
You can define creature comforts in many ways, and many of us view some of our creature comforts as near necessities. They can be all the little things about the home that make it yours and cry out to you “Welcome!” when you enter the door, or they can be those nice simple things, like a great fluffy pillow that enhances your sleep at night. Could you live without a great fluffy pillow? Of course you could, but if you have the wherewithal, why should you forego it?
There are so many different types of creature comforts that it is challenging to put them into a single class or category. They can include most furniture, most bed and bath items, most kitchen supplies, and many types of clothing. When you think about it, there are many accessories or extras in your life that aren't necessary to survival. These may even include creature comforts we might list as basic things like toilets or beds. Such things are often viewed as necessities but it should be noted that much of the world’s population lives without them.
Sometimes people go overboard in providing their homes with creature comforts. A house can become less comfortable if it is cluttered with too many things that really aren’t needed. A decorative pillow may be great for a chair, but do you need a couch that is made uncomfortable because it has too many pillows on it? There are magazines devoted to the idea of cutting back on having too many amenities, as too much of a good thing can quickly complicate our lives or make it less comfortable.
