Do you know how to be content?
“True happiness is to enjoy the present,without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.”Seneca
Have you ever noticed how simple ideas can be so difficult to apply?
I love, love, LOVE Seneca's thoughts, but every sentence is filled with challenge.
Enjoy the present.
Three words and two of them are obstacles.
Enjoy - Do I maintain a child-like perspective of joy? Do I respond with cynicism to the broken world, or do I look for ways to express gratitude?
Present - Am I here? Or am I looking at a screen, distracted by what's coming up, or generally wishing to be somewhere else? Am I honestly present?
Don't be anxiously dependent on the future.
Today has plenty of troubles of its own, but sometimes it's more fun to speculate about the trouble tomorrow might bring. We can get attached to imagining "what if" scenarios. Worry is uncomfortable, to be sure, but it feels productive; as though we're actually doing something.
What we're really doing is sowing the seeds of discontent. We are looking at something other than that which is in front of us and choosing to be unsatisfied.
Don't you just want to stop?
I do.
I want to practice being satisfied in the moment, with my "lot" and with my present; to enjoy.