Finding Contentment

We've had a good weekend and an okay week. Chores for the weekend and upcoming week preparations were made yesterday, so today has not been normal. We went for brunch this morning and for two weeks in a row all the family was there. Found that things aren't going well with Eric's grandma and the plans are fully underway to take the steps toward nursing home care. Eric is on his way now to pick up a pizza. George and I are on the deck enjoying the cool weather.

I am continually amazed at how fast George is growing up. He had his first "big-boy" haircut at Great Clips yesterday. He has now added the word motocycle to his vocabulary and said Anne this morning for the first time. He wouldn't say it so she could hear it, but the rest of the family did! The stinker, as Eric says, doesn't give demand performances.

I've spent the past couple of hours revisiting a topic that has been on my mind for many, many years. I used to discuss it often with our good friend, Cory. Contentment. The word and idea are simple...the practice is so much more difficult. I'm figuring that my current state of discontentment is from taking what I was originally content with and stepping over that limit and saying that more was better. It s very hard to live in today's society and understand contentment. We are continually told that we need to strive to be better, that we need more to be better. A promotion, more money, another doo-hickey to add to an ever expanding list of other things that we do not need. It's why Thanksgiving is a difficult holiday for folks to market...and why the reality of the holiday seems to be about families getting together to plan for Christmas and to review ads and shopping strategies instead of focusing on what they are thankful for and being content in that.

A good part of contentment is balance...and I am struggling with that balance. I don't feel I can control my contentment at work just yet. I am content in my schooling...if only because there is an end in site and it is a goal I have set for myself. I don't see it changing things drastically in any way other than I can say that I finished something I started long ago and there is a kind of happiness that comes with that. So I am pouring a lot of my time into trying to be content at home.

There's an inherent flaw in this. Is contentment something to strive for? Or is it something that you must step back and and simply realise exists? The flip side is that I do think that one can strive for balance and, since balance is a component of contentment, I do think that balance can be what one works for. So, I am hoping to look at where I am and find contentment in the little things and at the same time am striving to insert some balance in my life that might further solidify the ease of being content. In trying to acheive this balance, I'm looking at a lot of things...and I mean that both figuratively and literally. There are a lot of THINGS in my life that do not contribute in any way to any sense of balance or contentment that I am looking for. So, I am trying very hard to focus on the times when I feel content and the times when I do not and the times when I feel not much of anything at all...the zoning out in front of the tv or computer or, even in some cases, when reading. I'm not saying that I have to be feeling something constantly...escape can be good at times, but I do think that an awareness is appropriate.

This post has turned into something much more HDR than I intended. (HDR=Heavy, Deep and Real...a term from the church camp counselling days.) I intend to revisit the subject regularly.