Should I Really be Content?

“If you are foolish enough to be contented, don’t show it, but grumble with the rest.”

~Jerome K. 

I am not a perfect person.  I am a good writer, but by far, I am not the best that there is.  I am driven and overly ambitious but I do, a lot of the time, tend to let my fear get in my own way.  I will not do everything right all of the time and I am sure to get many more things wrong in this life before I leave it.  It is a waste of time to pretend that I am anything close to what people might wish I could be.  

I read online somewhere the other day something that said ‘until you make peace with who you are, you will never be content with what you have’.  The only problem that I have with that saying is that I don’t think that anyone should ever really be content with what they have if their goals in life far exceed where they are right now.  I have made peace with me and with all that I am, and more importantly with all that I am not and it took me a very long time to get to that point where I could be at peace with myself. 

However, I can not say that I am content with what I have.  Not out of some sense of being greedy and wanting more.  And not because I don’t appreciate the things that I do have right now at this very moment, but because I know that there is so much more that I can be doing and goals that I am striving to get accomplished, and I can’t say I’m content yet.  I know I could be doing better.  

I think a state of contentment happens when a person gets to that point in their life where they can check off the majority of the things they set out to achieve, when they are where they need to be in life, and they don’t necessarily have to be rich, but rather self reliant and independent, and more importantly, stable.  I am grateful, and very aware of the good things that I have had happen in my life, and of the potential that I have to do more with my life, but I do want to do more.  I am not content with being ordinary, but rather, I strive to be extraordinary.  

I think that sometimes people get complacent and they settle for what they have managed to achieve.  Maybe they get in this rut where they honestly feel that they can’t accomplish the rest of their goals that they had wanted to achieve.  That is not being content.  That is settling for what you have managed to do so far.    I think that it is okay to be at peace with the person you are and still not feel as if you are content.  Once you reach the point of contentment, what else is there to strive for?  Then what will our purpose be?  I am who I am and I am okay with that, but I don’t think I will ever think that I am done doing what I was put on this earth to do.  Until next time…If you think there is more in your life that needs to be done, are you really content? 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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