When I first got my driver's license at age 16, I looked at the expiration date and thought to myself, "Wow, I'm going to be 20 when this expires." Then when 20 rolled around, I looked at my driver's license and thought, "Wow, I can't believe I was 16 in this picture."
My birthday is just next week and I will be turning the big 2-9. Which sounds very surreal to me because I feel like I'm in my mid twenties, like 25-ish. And when I was 25, I thought I was going to marry my then-boyfriend. Pop my first kid out by 29 and my second by 31. Have a family, a career, a house, a cat and a dog. But I'm no where near that, well, except for the career, and we all know how great I feel about that. And while I have no regrets about breaking up with my then-boyfriend, I still can't help but muse over the fact that at age 29, I'm at the same stage I was at age 25. A little bit more experienced perhaps, a bit more educated, a bit more income, but substantially the same.
The idea of being happy sounds like such a simple idea. We are told that if you do x, y and z, you will be happy. Yet I have seen people do x, y and z, and learn much too late that it wasn't so simple after all. And isn't there a distinction between being content and being happy? Should I be content with being content? To me, "being content" connotes settling, a tacit resignation to a life less than one hoped for, and worse, less than what one deserves. Perhaps I'm clinging to my naive twenty-something optimism, but I'm just not quite yet ready to settle for "being content."
No, I think I would rather be happy.
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2 comments:
Being content can be like settling, but it doesn't have to be. You can be satisified with yourself for your accomplishments thus far without saying that you don't wish to strive for much more. It's being complacent that really connotes settling, and with being unconcerned or uninterested for anything more.
And I'm guessing that there's plenty for you to be happy about -- that you're heading in the direction that you want to be, for instance, or that you have a better idea what you want.
Good point. There is definitely a distinction between being content and being complacent.
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