radical contentment

I think there may be a secret, magical life hidden just beyond the doorway of radical contentment.

Sometimes, when I am feeling complaints rise within me and am struggling to balance my self perspective, I think of everything I wish I could have that I think I do not have. Then I counter by jabbingly accusing myself: you already have so much more than many people ever get! Then I ask: but what if it isn’t enough? What if I want more? What if my life/marriage/work/whatever being this good doesn’t mean I can’t still long for what is missing and want to keep reaching higher and deeper?

I don’t know. I don’t have the answers to any of these questions. When my complaints and shortcomings are rattling around in my head more loudly than I can get a grip on, I don’t know how to deal with my own competing thoughts. (shaking them off and clearing them out with something like the gym is always good medicine!)

But sometimes I wonder if the secret, powerful antidote to such queries is actually in appreciating everything as much as possible and finding sustaining, remarkable amounts of gratitude and wonder for what is already here. Just choosing to shift into contentment. Choosing to find positive intent and collaboration, choosing to take a step back and relax into goodness.

Often, goodness is already all around, ready for us to bask. Often, we have what we need and also more of what we want than we even realize. Foggy self-perspective can cloud the possibility of seeing things as they really are in a balanced way. Comparison and grasping usually lead to blinding us to the joy we could just rebelliously, delightedly experience right now.

Perhaps what we think is going wrong or not living up to our standards is actually going much closer to right than we’re allowing ourselves to see.

Perhaps radical contentment — making the decision to find happiness and calm, within ourselves and our lives, just as they already are, now — can open the path up to so much more growth and possibility.

Maybe, when we are questioning fairness or getting what we want, maybe the reminder we need is to start from a place of gratitude. Be a foot soldier for joy, doing the work of everyday magic and profound, simple contentment. Let’s see how everything sprouts and blooms from there…