Lessons in Gratitude Day 581

Posted on February 14, 2013 by mtchamblee

It’s been a long day and my honey nut O’s are awaiting me. I’ve promised myself that I will enjoy a bowl splashed with unsweetened almond milk as a reward once I’ve written this evening’s blog. It has been another one of those days–tiring, running from one meeting into another with scarcely enough time to shift mental gears, check emails, and try to squeeze in some real work. It isn’t that the meetings weren’t important–though some were less so than others–it’s simply that I have so many irons poking into so many different fires that I scarcely know which one to pick up next. As I look around me there are so many things that need to be done: important valuable work that will benefit a number of people in a variety of ways. My task is figuring out how to get all the plates spinning and keep them from falling and smashing into the floor while adding new ones. It’s tiring work!

I was grateful when the last meeting had ended, though frustrated because I knew I couldn’t get in any more work before it would be time to head home–and Google maps (which I consult daily to determine the best time to head out to reduce the commute) was already telling me it was going to be one hour and 16 minutes. I sighed as I climbed into my car, listening to the traffic report (on the 8’s) and getting my audiobook cued up. There’s a particularly snarly patch of the drive where it takes about 45 minutes to go about 3 miles or so. This evening it seemed as though the bridge was one long streak of red taillights snaking down the hill. In the end it took one hour and 4o minutes to get home, where I was greeted by my four-legged Valentine, who is always happy to see me (and I mean always.)

I am grateful this evening for many simple gratitude kinds of things: from the big ones like beloved family and friends, good coworkers and important (if tiring) work, a safe commute home as I drive among thousands (tens of thousands) of cars each day. (I must confess that I long for the days when I won’t have to check the traffic on the 8s before determining when and where I will drive…) I’m grateful for my guitars and the gift of music that I’m blessed with–the ability to play, sing and entertain myself, as well as share my songs with others from time to time is blessing. I don’t play nearly enough, though I hope to rectify this in the days ahead.

I am grateful for the food I have in my fridge and cabinets. I have had my share of financial struggles, but rarely have I not had sufficient food and on those occasions when I didn’t have enough to eat, I knew it was only for a day or two. I am grateful for the a roof over my head and heat that warms my house. I think about the people affected by hurricanes and blizzards for whom that is no longer true and for the “displaced people” who haven’t had a home and have been living out in the elements. I try to be mindful of these many blessings and not to take anything for granted, though I know I will in spite of myself. Mostly at the moment, I am grateful to be alive and have the opportunity to contribute how and where I can to the good of the planet in some way or another. And with that, I think it’s time for my honey nut o’s.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 580

Posted on February 13, 2013 by mtchamblee

Whew! It always amazes me how exhausting mental work is. I can remember back in my youth–during my college days–I used to work on a farm. The physical exertion associated with any number of chores I was responsible for was exhausting but deeply satisfying. The last serious farm work I did was over 30 years ago, and though I  worked hard in my gardens and doing yard work over the years, I haven’t had much in the way of physical work in a number of years now. This is something I hope to remedy in the near future. In the meantime, I am reminded that sometimes the expending of mental energy can often make me as tired as working out physically. The past few days have felt like constant meetings and mental activity, and while they have been generative, productive, and mostly positive meetings, I am aware that I am somewhat “peopled out” and in need of some mental down time, which is not likely to come until the weekend.

I am grateful to be working, to be using my skills, gifts and creativity in the service of–at the risk of sounding dramatic–making the world a better place. I know, right? Perhaps that sounds a little over the top corny, but as I look at the work I do and have done for many years I am aware that it is largely about creating spaces where individuals can live and learn and bring their best and whole selves into everything they do.

This is one of those evenings when my level of exhaustion is going to win out over my desire to continue writing. So I will conclude simply by offering a poem that I’ve come to appreciate over the past year or so. I first heard the last lines of the poem as an invitation from my friend Mary, something for me to think about as I contemplated my next steps for my life. “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

I have been pleased at the direction that my one wild and precious life has taken recently. And while I’m not sure how long I’ll continue this work before I retire to the farm, for now I am in a pretty good place. And for that I can’t help but be exceedingly grateful.

Enjoy “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver.

The Summer Day
by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
 Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 579

Posted on February 12, 2013 by mtchamblee

The other day one of brothers posted this on Facebook, “You have never really lived, until you have done something for someone who can never repay you! Come on People, let’s start living!” I replied to him, “Then you have REALLY lived, my beloved brother because you’ve done things for me for which I can never repay you.”

I’ve thought a lot about what he wrote and realized again how many times I’ve been on the receiving end of such wonderful blessings that I cannot repay. It was that same brother who flew out last September to drive me and my dog and a few belongings from my home in California halfway across the country to Indiana, where I dropped him off (at his home) before continuing the last 600 miles to my new home here in Maryland. Together he and I rode over 2000 miles together, him doing most of the driving, buying all the gas and food, and footing the hotel bills along the way. Every time I tried to pull out cash, he waved me away. When I thanked my sister-in-law for booking the hotel rooms she’d replied, “It’s the least we could do.” I remember shaking my head, thinking, They are doing me such a huge favor, helping me and sacrificing for me and it’s the least they can do?

In fall of 2011, some months after I’d lost my job and had to move out of my home when my relationship ended, I went to the mailbox and found an envelope in the mail with my friend Pat’s return address on it. Hmmmm, I wondered at it. It was unusual for Pat to mail me anything. When I opened it, it contained a check for $1,000. I was stunned. Pat and I had been best friends for over 30 years and while we’d done a variety of favors for one another over that time, it had never involved money. Pat had known that I was struggling financially and with a little finagling of her own finances found the funds to help me through a particularly trying time. When I called her to ask her what had gotten into her (after I’d pulled myself together enough to be able to speak), I could almost hear her shrug as if to say, “It’s what we do. It’s only money.” She too, according to my brother’s Facebook statement must be really living as well.

I was unemployed or underemployed for some 18 months, and in that time many people–especially my family and friends all “really lived” as they rallied around me offering support, assistance, encouragement and strength which I can never repay. My friend Mary and her family helped me in more ways than I can count and my pal Roland took me to lunch every few weeks and never let me pay for it. Even now my siblings are the angels around me who keep me going in more ways than I can count and in ways that I can only hope to someday repay. It’s a good thing that none of us keep score.

In the past few days I’ve connected in person or by phone with four of my five siblings, both of my children, and my ex-husband whom I consider a close friend. Each of these interactions bless me in ways I can’t count. There is no greater gift than I can imagine than the love of family and friends. I am grateful beyond measure for the bonds of love that connect us one to another. There’s simply nothing better than that.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 578

Posted on February 11, 2013 by mtchamblee

Today has been a good day and as always I am grateful for that. I feel like a juggler with many varied things I’m working on, but I am glad to say that most of them are good. I have moments like this–the one I’m in right now–when I can scarcely articulate how good life is. If someone were to look at my bank balance, my wardrobe, my home, and other external indicators of my level of “success” I suppose they might conclude that I am living on the edge, somewhere between barely “making it” and being about to turn a corner toward being wildly successful. At my age and level of education one could think that I should be further along, and trust me I’ve had moments when I look at some of the decisions I’ve made in my life and thought about how different my life would be if I would have turned left instead of right or taken one particular path instead of the one I started down. Regardless of all of that, I am grateful to be exactly where I am at 9:01 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Monday, 11th of February, 2013.

This morning I spent time writing in my journal about what I want in my life in terms of my livelihood and significant relationships. As a life coach I’ve frequently invited clients to define for themselves what they want their lives to be rather than spend time and energy describing what they don’t want. For many of us it’s much easier to describe in great detail the type of work we hate doing or wouldn’t want to do, all the places we don’t want to live, the kind of person we don’t want to be in relationship with. When I say to someone, “Okay, that’s all interesting, but what is it you do want?” they frequently can’t answer me. There’s a career exploration book titled, “I Don’t Know What I Want, But I Know It’s Not This.” Great title, but it points out one of the challenges in helping people determine what the type of work they’re drawn to, that they’re most compatible with. We don’t know what we want in part because we’re so rarely asked the question; we are not given permission to actually want something let alone believe we might actually be able to ask for and get it. So, like many of my clients, it took me a long while before I could begin to define what I wanted.

What I wrote in my journal this morning was a refinement of thoughts and ideas I’ve been working on for a while now. About a year ago I spent some time really thinking about the qualities I wanted in my next job/workplace. When I think back on it now, I now find myself working in an environment that has some of the same elements I described as desirable. Some of the things I described have come to pass and I find myself guardedly optimistic that things will continue to move in a positive direction. My hope is that as I get clearer about what I want in other areas of my life and begin to take intentional steps in the direction I want to go, that doors will open and stars will align in ways that will bring me closer to what I’m looking for in those areas as well.

The other day I wrote about contentment and my desire to be content. I am realizing that contentment rests in the present moment. Tonight I am sitting here typing away on my evening blog and feeling an amazing sense of contentment. I am not desperately clutching onto it lest it slip away, and I am also not lamenting the idea that I might not feel content when I wake up in the morning. I might be cranky and discontented tomorrow or even 20 minutes from now. But in this moment now at 9:42 p.m. on Monday, February 11, 2013, I am completely content. And for that I am grateful.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 577

Posted on February 10, 2013 by mtchamblee

I am grateful for every day God sends my way. Each morning when I wake I perhaps make a dozen or so choices in that first hour. Some of them are simple while others may affect the trajectory of the next few hours of the day, perhaps even the whole day. Whether I experience a “good” day or a bad one, throughout much of the day I am in charge of what’s happening and how I’m feeling about it. Every day is filled with possibilities that allow me to choose or alter the direction I take.

Today has been a somewhat odd day, but I have learned to take these days in stride. I sometimes measure whether a day has been “good” or “bad” based on how much I accomplished in it. Using that particular yardstick I could conclude that this wasn’t a very productive or good day. I did manage to get my grocery shopping and a load of laundry done, but mostly I lazed around, even going so far as to take the unusual step of having a midday nap. I did get myself up and out of the house, which is a good thing, spending the late afternoon and early evening with my younger sister and her family. This was another decision point: I knew that I needed to get away from my home environs and connect with family to shake the gloom that had settled in on me.

I enjoy spending time with them–they have a very easygoing banter that bounces between the four of them and is entertaining to watch and periodically participate in. It was a good way to spend a few hours and I am grateful as always at such good care my sister takes of me. The last several times I’ve had dinner with her I’ve taken home a care package of leftovers that provide a second meal–either lunch or dinner this week. All three of my sisters are excellent cooks (apparently that gene is mutated in my DNA; I can cook but hardly consider myself excellent…) and I have been beneficiary of a number of delectable meals since I arrived here last fall. It is one of the perks of living close to the kinfolks–being able to break bread with them on a semi-regular basis. I have only had my one sister and her kids over for dinner one evening. Perhaps I’ll do a little more entertaining at some point in the spring or early summer. We shall see.

Every day when I wake I express gratitude to God for the day ahead. I will rejoice and be glad. Some days turn out great, some days I struggle. But I am grateful for them all, even the “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad” days. Each one is as a single thread woven into the tapestry of my life–difficult to see individually but part of the overall pattern. I want to live as best I can in the moment-by-moment give and take of each day, to be with whatever emerges, letting it arise and pass through rather than overwhelm me, and end each day as I begin it, with gratitude. That indeed is a day well spent and a life well lived.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 576

Posted on February 9, 2013 by mtchamblee

I am grateful this evening for the friends I have in my life. This afternoon I spent nearly two hours video chatting with my friend Roland. He and I have made a commitment to talk this way once a month on Saturdays. He’s in California and I am here, but we’ve figured out a time and system that works well for us. I am grateful to him not only for keeping in touch regularly but because of the love and support he offered me during the struggle and angst-filled year that was 2011 and through much of 2012. Friends are those who stand by, who circle around you when things get difficult. I have a very small circle who did so during those tough times, and I am so thankful for each of them.

It was nice talking to Roland today in part because we didn’t spend the whole time talking about me; in fact we spent much of the time talking about him and various things that are going on in his life. It felt good to be offering a listening ear and some advice and suggestions rather than being the one asking for the support and advice and looking for assistance. Mind you, there’s nothing wrong with needing help. Indeed it has been a valuable lesson for me and a good experience for my ego to be in a place of asking for assistance when needed. It hasn’t always felt good, but important for me to learn nonetheless.

I am still working to figure out how to begin to forge friendships out here in my new locale. As a somewhat introverted person, meeting and engaging with “strangers” is not easy for me, so I am in thought about how to go about it. My schedule is not particularly conducive to spending a lot of time out and about. During the week between work and my commute home, by the time I get home I am too tired to want to go out, and after full days of meeting and interacting with people all day at work, by the time the weekend rolls around I am reasonably peopled out. Still, I know as I get more settled into my environs and as the days lengthen with the return of spring, I’ll get out and about more often, thus increasing my opportunity for making new friends. In the meantime, I am grateful to live close by to each of my sisters and consider them friends as well as family. I enjoy spending time with them and their families.

So for the time being I am content, grateful for the people in my life whom I am blessed to call friends. May they each be blessed and filled all good things. So be it!

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 575

Posted on February 8, 2013 by mtchamblee

I am grateful tonight for having a sense of knowing who I am. I had a conversation earlier today with a young person who is really still sorting that out. It’s an occupational regularity when one works on a college campus and spends any time at all around young people between the ages of 17 and 24. You’re bound to run into a lot of people who don’t really know themselves very well. I hasten to add, however, that this phenomenon isn’t solely the domain of the traditional college-aged young person; I’ve talked with a variety of thirty- and fortysomethings who also don’t seem to have everything about themselves all figured out either. I was talking to just such a person this morning who informed me that he couldn’t wait until he was 60 because then people would stop asking him things about his life and why he had or hadn’t done the things they’d expected out of him by now.

Even as I approach the nearer side of 60 myself I can’t say that I have it all figured out either; but I definitely know more about and am more comfortable with who I am as I’ve gotten older. I think that has grown out of the various things I’ve been through in my life that I’ve allowed to teach me rather than break me. It’s taken me a long time to learn some lessons, and much of my self knowledge has come through intentional study and prayer. It’s not self knowledge in a narcissistic way. To me it’s about learning life lessons that can perhaps help someone else as they are asking themselves questions about who they are and what they want to be about in the world. It’s one of the reasons I found my way into higher education, interacting with students and life coaching, helping clients seek and find answers from within themselves.

I keep going back to the line from the Mary Chapin Carpenter song, “Jubilee” in which she describes sings “we’re all like frail boats on the sea.” That’s how I feel about us humans. We’re wonderful, beautiful and sometimes fragile, delicate creatures. My conversations with people, my observations of them, my excavations of my own life bring me back to the idea that we all just want to be known, to be seen and acknowledged, loved and accepted for who we are (as soon as we figure out who that is.) The longer I live and the more people I interact with and see, the more convinced I am of our innate desire to connect with other humans.  And connect deeply, not at superficial levels.

I am grateful that I learned early to ask myself pretty deep questions about life, about who I am and how I got to be here, about what I was going to do out in the world. I definitely didn’t have the answers, but asking the questions set me on a life path that while it has had some pretty interesting and wild twists and turns has nonetheless landed me in a good place. I still have more questions than answers, but as Rilke says, “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.” Sounds like good advice to me. I think I’ll stick with that and see where it takes me next.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 574

Posted on February 7, 2013 by mtchamblee

Uh oh. It’s the blinking cursor on the blank page = blank mind phenomenon. Fingers tapping idly on the keyboard, not pushing hard enough to add letters to the screen, just drumming in thought. Shifting the laptop more securely on my lap. Taking a swallow of water. (Not typing complete sentences.)

Writer’s block never killed anyone, thank goodness. At least I don’t think it has. I suffer writer’s block with great regularity, silently pleading for my muse to show up. When I write in my morning journal it’s a lot easier. For one thing I have a bit of a routine when I write each morning that ensures that the words flow. The biggest difference between my morning journal and my daily (usually nightly) blog is that no one reads my morning journal. So I can write complete drivel in it. I don’t, of course, but I could. I find that when I write in the mornings I am still quite mindful of my grammar and punctuation, and I am careful to write in as positive language as I can manage–I generally try to avoid most forms of the words “no” and “not” in my continuing effort to spin words and sentences in positive versus negative directions. Here in the evening, I am putting my words out in the blogosphere, and while I don’t have legions of adoring readers, I do have some and pretty much anyone in the world has access to the words I write in this blog. I take that pretty seriously.

Still, I have those days when I stumble around searching for creative ways to write about things I am grateful for, attempting to put new spins on things and not repeating myself too often. That is when I turn to simple gratitude: a listing of a few simple things for which I’m grateful. It’s essentially the gratitude list that most people suggest everyone takes time to write. It’s a good place to start on the journey of gratitude, especially for people who don’t like to write or aren’t  confident in their writing abilities. It’s more about really thinking about and feeling the gratitude and capturing that and less about how good it sounds–unless of course you’re going to blog about it, then you probably care a little more about how it reads.

So here is my simple gratitude for this evening:

  • I am grateful for the comforts of home. This morning as I stood in the shower, I expressed my gratitude for hot water. I hate being cold, especially  in the shower. I am immensely grateful that I can afford to live in a house and to pay to heat it. I do not take this for granted, particularly on the days when the temperatures in our area hit the teens and low 20s. I am grateful for all the “basic” necessities of food, shelter, clothing, etc. What things we actually require to live, even relatively comfortably, are remarkably small in number, everything else is essentially a luxury. When I look around me, I am grateful for my “lavish” lifestyle.
  • Each day I give thanks for my four-legged roommate. She continues to be a source of amusement and joy–always ready to play and folic. I still have much to learn from her in this regard. And she comforts me when I am sad or temporarily overwhelmed by one emotion or another. This morning I was praying for my friend’s mother who is facing a serious illness when suddenly I was overcome by an unexpected burst of grief and sadness over the loss of my mother so many years ago. I continue to be amazed that even after nearly 18 years without her living presence in my life I can still experience the pain of her loss. I breathed my way through it and, having no other human there to comfort me chose to connect with Honor stroking her head and talking to her as I sniffed my way through the brief storm.
  • As I calmed myself from my grief burst, I took a few moments to offer a prayer for each of my children, allowing myself to feel the gap in my life at not seeing them as regularly as I’d like. I’m grateful for the relationships I have with each of them and look forward to connecting with them in person somehow sometime in the next few months.

Some days I have profound insights into gratitude as I continue on this journey. Even when I do, I still express simple gratitude as well, whether in this blog or in my conversations with others. My life is blessed in so many ways. And even when I face the blinking cursor on the blank screen I still know that though I might not be as articulate about it as I’d like on a given day, I will still have something to say. And for that–the ability to find words to express my thanks–I am grateful.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 573

Posted on February 6, 2013 by mtchamblee

I have been in deep thought over the past few days. During my waking hours my mind is constantly noodling on something, often related to my work and the occasionally thorny issue on the home front. Even during my “down time” when I’m sleeping or vegging out, I can feel a portion of my mind deep in thought. Periodically I put something out that I want my mind to be working on. I’ll say aloud, “I want to put some thought toward ______,” whatever the particular thing happens to be, and then I turn my mind loose to work on it. I will then cease to put conscious thought to it and will let my subconscious take over. My assumption is that my mind is like a computer, it is processing all kinds of things at the same time even if I am only thinking about one or two items. On my laptop right now I have four different programs open. I’m not using them all right now, but they are active on my computer nonetheless. I also have several tabs open in this web browser, but I’m only working on this one at the moment. That is what my mind is doing all the time. I think the brain/the mind is a wonderful, complex machine. I am grateful to have a reasonably high-functioning brain. Tonight my brain is tired…I think too much processing has drained my mental cells. I need to go into sleep mode and see if I can recharge.

Before I recharge I want to set my brain to noodling on yet another thing and invite you into it with me. I want gratitude to go viral. Others have tried this and no doubt met with some measure of success–heck even Oprah had a promotion about gratitude…I don’t really know what happened to it; it sort of faded. At the height of my blog I had about 300 page visits. Now I average between 25 and 50. It spikes around holidays and at random times when more people than the faithful 25 or so happen to read it. I would be less than honest if I didn’t admit the degree of ego involved in wishing a bunch of people read it, and yet I haven’t made a consistent, concerted effort to market this blog. (I have a Twitter account that I don’t really know how to use!) But I’m a big believer in gratitude and the power of enumerating and/or expressing what I am grateful for in my life. So I am putting my processing power to work on the issue of inviting more people to think about and express gratitude for the blessings in their life (even for those things that might not seem like blessings but are disguised.) How about you putting your brain power to work on it as well?

As I close, I want to offer a few words to a friend who is watching a beloved parent go through a serious illness.

Sometimes when you get hard news or are going through struggle, grief, pain, anxiety, loss, fear, depression, it can be particularly difficult to feel grateful. You look around and everything appears bleak. All around you people are going about their daily lives–going to work, shopping, laughing with friends, going to movies–all while your life feels like it’s falling apart. Even in the midst of the struggle and the drama are the little sprouts of beauty and blessing that are sometimes hiding under the snows. In my life I had to start with simply believing the beauty was there and then I gradually began to see it here and there. Eventually, I began to see it everywhere. You might not have to look very hard at all to find things in your life that, even in the midst of this circumstance, you are grateful for.
I know this is an unnerving time for you and your Mom (and the rest of the family), but even in the midst of all of this there is beauty. You’ve seen it yourself during the quiet vigils you’ve kept at her bedside, and in the long talks you’ve had as she’s unburdened her mind with all the thoughts and memories she wants to share. There will be challenging days ahead and there will also be moments of grace and lightness. Know that you are buoyed and held up by the prayers and love of your friends and family, and angels seen and unseen.

May all beings be free from suffering and the root of suffering, and may we know happiness and the root of happiness. So be it.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 572

Posted on February 5, 2013 by mtchamblee
“When life gets you down, you know what you gotta do?” Dory asks her friend Marlin in the film, Finding Nemo.
“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.


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