“I don’t wanna know what you gotta do.” He replies in a tone that implies that he also doesn’t care what you gotta do. “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming…”
This seems like pretty good advice to me. More than once when I’ve felt in a bit of a funk I’ll say to myself “just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.” The fact that I can’t actually swim is irrelevant; what I “gotta do” is focus on swimming through whatever is going on and keep moving forward. On so many occasions when I was going through all kinds of drama in my life, I kept myself going literally by keeping myself going. I kept moving, taking actions–even tiny ones–so as not to get caught up in all the “negative” emotions that would naturally and somewhat reasonably emerge as a result of facing the series of unfortunate events that befell me a few years ago.
I am grateful to have learned enough about myself fairly early on that I knew I needed to will myself to move forward. This was not about trying to ignore or distract myself from the difficulties I faced–there were times when I really allowed myself the space to feel the grief and loss and sadness I was experiencing. It was simply that I wasn’t going allow myself to be overcome by it, as I easily could have. So yeah, I just keep swimming.
I spoke to an old friend the other day. She’s suffered from a debilitating illness for much of her life and has been in and out of treatments and hospitals over the years. In many ways her opportunities for a “normal” life have been severely curtailed in large part as a consequence of her physical incapacitation.
“I guess I’ve had a pretty good life,” she said to me as we reminisced about various significant periods of her life. And something made me ask her if she was content. “Yes,” she replied after thinking about it for a moment. “I guess I would say I am content. Not wildly happy, but content.” As we continued talking I found myself marveling internally at how positive she sounded. She hadn’t experienced a lot of what some people would consider elements of a fulfilling life: she’d never married or had children, and while she did go to college, earned degrees and entered the workforce (she decided to become a nurse figuring that since she’d been in and out of hospitals her whole life she might as well work in one) she hadn’t had much of a career. She is on permanent disability and lives with her brother and his family. Ann has made peace with her life, and that is surely a gift.
I am learning to be content. I think content is different from satisfied. At this moment in my life I am not satisfied that I have done what I’ve wanted to do, that I’ve accomplished what I want to accomplish, that I’m pleased with where I am at the moment. And so I know I still have a way to go to both be alright with where my life is right now while at the same time taking steps to make it better, to move closer to contentment.
The Christian Apostle Paul wrote, “Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little.”
I think it would be good to learn to be content in whatever situation I might find myself in. When I think about my lifetime, where I started from, all the things I’ve gone through, and where I am now, I can’t help but be grateful. Irrespective of the difficulties I’ve faced off and on over the years, I am keenly aware of how blessed I am. I have so much more to learn about being grateful and about being at peace with my life as it is right now in this moment. And I am willing to continue to learn.
