The Journey to Contentment

I’m on a journey to contentment. There have been many moments over the last several months where the tension, stress, and uncertainty of this season have felt incredibly overwhelming. It’s made me feel like crawling into a dark hole and hibernating this winter to avoid the pain and confusion.

And yet here I am.

Still waking up everyday, still working and taking care of my family, and continuing to do all of the mundane things of life.

Because I have to.

Because putting one foot in front of the other and taking one day at a time is all any of us can do right now. As much as I desperately want to know the future, I have to pause and think.

A few years ago, I also greatly wanted to know the future. That’s a craving of being human, wanting to know and understand our path in life, our destiny. And yet, if I had known this season I’m in was what my future looked like, would I have liked it? Probably not.

Who would choose a global pandemic, economic downfall, and political chaos to coincide at the same time? No one.

And yet, I say it again. Here I am.

Here we are.

So today, I am pondering once again how to live in the present. Even more so, what it means to be on the journey to contentment.

I realize this is always going to present a different challenge for everyone, and I won’t pretend to understand circumstances of which I have no knowledge. But I will say this. I don’t want to reach the end of my life only to realize I was always striving towards the next thing. The next promotion. Buying a house. Being free from student-debt. Figuring out who I am.

I want to live my life in the here and now.

I want to enjoy the taste of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. I want to stargaze and marvel at the wonder of our solar system. I want to cuddle and read books with my daughter. I want to have deep discussions with my husband.

I want to stop wondering “what-if” and “someday.”

Don’t you?

When I was in college I was a part of a program called Adopt-a-Grandparent. I visited a woman named Virginia every week for several years. As she was nearing the end of her life, we had a conversation one day where I asked her what she loved most about her life. She talked about how she enjoyed traveling and how she wished she’d done it more. And then she looked out the window a minute.

She said, “The most important thing about life is to love. To love, love, love, love, love.”

It was so simple and yet so profound. And it has stuck with me for the last 10 years.

To love, and to love well, means knowing yourself and knowing those around you. And to do that, we must find contentment in the present. In the here and now.

So how do we find and journey to contentment?

That, soul friend, is what I believe this life is all about.

Are you willing to go on the journey?

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