It's funny how talking things through with a therapist can lead to realizations that were totally obvious, but not obvious enough to spot. We were talking about what it means to be content, in the broad sense of life. It comes up a lot at the intersection of our social interaction, work and identity. Like anyone, I suppose, I want to be content more of the time.
She pointed out that the things that make me feel content are not a mystery. I actually know what they are in great detail. It's just that they are not necessarily things that are easy to come by. Like if your world was riding a bike, you would just get on your bike because it's always available. This isn't bad, necessarily, because if we could really choose what lights us up, we'd all pick the easiest and most common things.
My things are not common. Socially, I enjoy meeting people from other countries and appreciating how they look at things differently. That's not easy to find, especially when you work from home. I like to travel, whether it's to familiar places or new places. Both, however, are limited by having a child of school age. I like being near the ocean, it's where I'm most relaxed. I'd do this more if it were a little closer and I had a place to crash. Cruising certainly helps with that, too. There are a bunch of other things that fill my cup, and I won't bore you with the list, but most are things that just aren't easy to come by, normally.
You have to layer in all of the baggage that comes with societal and cultural constructs that are arbitrary, mythical or otherwise ridiculous. Americans in particular have all of these dumb ideas about hard work, achievement and winning that are not very conducive to living a balanced and content life. And with (anti-)social media, we have an entire category of people who want to show you how awesome they are for the stuff they do, and they just willed it into existence. Yeah, I'm looking at you fitness people. You don't get a high-five because you do something that you like, and other people are not less because they don't share that desire.
Being able to do more of the things that feed my soul is something that is coming more into focus for the long-term. I am excited for that. It does suck that we're wired to fear things by default, for self-preservation. That's why we can't just fart rainbows and unicorns all day. We're basically animals.
No comments yet.